The Clouded Yellow

Hitchcock was of the opinion that audiences aren't really interested in what puts protagonists into danger - only that they ARE in danger, and need to escape.

This film proves Hitchcock was not 100% correct. Police believe Jean Simmons is guilty of a crime, when she plainly isn't. Trevor Howard decides their best course of action is to run for it. And so, the body of the movie has our charismatic pair dodging on and off trains, buses and coaches - jumping across rocks at the top of a waterfall - scrambling across dockyard roofs.

All good exciting stuff - but I couldn't get out of my mind that it was all unnecessary. They should have stayed put.

In other words, the MacGuffin wasn't strong enough.

This is an average thriller with good performances all-round. Trevor Howard is excellent as an ex-spy, David Somers, taking a break to work on cataloguing butterflies in the Fentons' country house. There he meets their highly-strung niece, Sophie. The film plot in some ways resembles the plot of 'Gaslight' when we see her strict aunt Jess is intent on convincing Sophie that she is losing her memory.

When the police suspect Sophie of murder, she goes on the run with Somers. This gives us an excuse to take a trip around early 1950's Britain. Somers makes full use of the contacts he made during his previous spying experience.

After a short stay in Newcastle the couple travel on to the Lake District and we have an opportunity to indulge in the scenic beauty of Ullswater, Patterdale as well as the waterfall at Sourmilk Gill.

In contrast to the countryside scenes, the denouement takes place in Liverpool. There is a small final twist, but anyone watching carefully will notice that this twist had been hinted at some time beforehand. Nevertheless the film is enjoyable and doesn't put too many demands upon the viewer. 6/10.

If it weren't for good old Trevor Howard, this film would not be nearly so interesting. He is always enjoyable to watch, as he is always convincing and we want to see what he will get up to. Here he is thrown out of MI-6, the foreign secret service, rather unceremoniously after years of brilliant service in the field, and has to find some work. He ends up taking a temporary job cataloguing butterflies, of which the Clouded Yellow is a particularly pretty one which comes across the English Channel in a good summer and flutters around as delightfully as Jean Simmons. And yes, she is living in the rambling country house where the butterfly collection is. She is the psychologically disturbed and mysteriously orphaned niece of a rather creepy aunt and uncle. Or at least they say, rather too often, that Jean is psychologically disturbed. But is she really? Did she witness as a very young child what really happened to her parents? They say she 'found them'. But did she see who killed them? Clearly there is some vintage mystery material here. Jean Simmons at this stage in her career had very bushy eyebrows and looked more like a trapped wild animal than a girl. Alas, she did not have the magically convincing wildness of Jennifer Jones in GONE TO EARTH (1950, see my review), or this film could have become something of a classic. The direction by Ralph Thomas is also rather uninspired and pedestrian. So this film never really rises to the level of a butterfly's flight. Come to that, the story is pretty contrived and corny. The film is a tasty amuse-bouche, but should never be confused with a main course.

Sort of paint-by-numbers Hitchcock. But still, it probably comes closer to the style of the master than any other pretender with the exception of "Niagara".

Hitch always liked a story with some odd eccentricities to the plot. This story has a butterfly collector, a taxidermist, and some shady Chinese Liverpudlians.

But you can tell it's not Hitch easily enough. I believe it's the pacing, which never reaches a nail-biting pitch of intensity -- more like nail-drumming. I hope someone more astute than I will analyse precisely what marks this film as ultimately un-Hitchcock.

The film's ending is very abrupt and more than a little unsatisfying, with the loose ends being tied up in a slip knot.

An important element in many a great Hitchcock film is the pursuit sequence through imaginative locations. At least we are not disappointed in that respect. Besides Liverpool, our hero and heroine are hunted through night-time Newcastle which is made to resemble Vienna in an earlier Trevor Howard film, "The Third Man". Some of the best chase scenes take place among the hills, lakes, and waterfalls of the English Switzerland -- the Lake District, at that time in Cumberland (hence the name of the bus line) and Westmorland.

Our beautiful English Swiss Miss, Jean Simmons, seems to be more voluptuous here than she would be later in her career, but perhaps I'm mistaken.

The film's mysterious title refers to a variety of butterfly found in a meadow near the collector's house.

CLOUDED YELLOW is a favourite from my schooldays because of its basic ingredients - a haunting mystery, a fascinating chase across England from a deceptively-drowsy Hampshire to the bustle of Liverpool docks, a rousing climax and the only on-screen teaming of two great British stars. Hitchcock was the obvious model, a factor utilised in the marketing of the recent DVD and the director Ralph Thomas actually remade THE 39 STEPS - very flatly - at the end of the decade. Thomas was a prolific journeyman of variable competence, turning out thrillers, war films, adventure stories, historical dramas and comedies (most notably DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE) but lacked the personality to conjure a classic.

David Somers (Trevor Howard) is an M.I.6 agent - a sort of low-key James Bond without the glamour - who's put on the back-burner after botching an operation. He opts for a job cataloguing butterflies (hence the title) at a rural retreat where he involves himself in the troubles of Sophie (Jean Simmons) the young ward of the house who's suspected of murder when the local bad-lad (Maxwell Reed), with whom she'd been quarrelling, is found with a knife in his back. Somers takes it upon himself to extricate this trapped butterfly from police hostility (very Hitch) and smuggle her out of the country with the help of his contacts. Despite the presence of Kenneth More on the sidelines (waiting for the big break so soon to come) there's no (conscious) humour in the film at all and no Hitch-tension between the leads. Though motivated by a romantic attachment as well as the urge to atone for past mistakes Somers seems more a father-figure than a potential lover. No teasy-weasy handcuffs and wet stockings here, it's all very stiff upper-lip and he never questions her innocence though the girl remains an enigma until near the end. As a child she'd witnessed the violent death of her parents but has blocked out the memory (very SPELLBOUND). When she starts to get it back the real perpetrator of crimes past and present turns up in Liverpool to silence her. What follows is like watching MIDSOMER MURDERS turn into THE PERILS OF PAULINE complete with cliff-hanger. Wildly over-the-top and completely illogical it's great hare-brained fun and very gripping. Whether this startling gear-change was originally planned or came about during production is unclear. The film certainly terminates very abruptly with the pair in long-shot walking away together over the rooftops, arms around each other, though the gentleman at this moment looks about a foot taller than Mr. Howard. Hitchcockery is catching. In the changed ending to SUSPICION we're given a back-of-heads shot of Grant and Fontaine where the heads quite obviously aren't theirs.

Ralph Thomas does bring off one nifty Hitch trick quite well. Somers appears to capitulate to pursuing cops and sends them into a restaurant to pick the girl up. When they reach her table she's no longer there and a brassy blonde greets them instead while Somers too has cleared off. Nice one. Hitch would smile.