The Green Cockatoo

This has some good ingredients to make a jolly, if not exactly, menacing murder story - but it's all just way too fluffy and talky. The doey-eyed Rene Ray is "Eileen" who arrives into London very late one night. At the station, she encounters "Dave" (Robert Newton) who offers to show her an hotel where she might pass the night. What she doesn't know, is that her good Samaritan has fallen foul of some crooks and a station fracas ensues and he is mortally injured. Before he croaks, he gives her a message to give to his brother "Jim" (John Mills) in the eponymous nightclub. She meets the brother, but a rather unlikely series of mishaps befall the pair as they are being sought by the police and the hoodlums. Aside from some singing and dancing that one wouldn't normally attribute to John Mills, the thing is entirely procedural with little by way suspense or peril; and saving a rather curious performance from Frank Atkinson as the butler "Protheroe" would be instantly forgettable.

From the prolific writer graham greene. Eileen is heading to london to look for work. When she arrives, she crosses paths with a mob of crooks and murderers. And dave connor, the man they are after. She's completely innocent, but is now in it up to her eyebrows! Falsely accused, she's on the run. Can eileen stay out of jail long enough to prove her innocence? To the coppers, and to jim ? Pretty good suspense. Low budget shortie B film from twentieth century. Directed by william menzies. Greene was nominated for one of his other works, fallen idol. Menzies had already won two oscars for other works. The lead, john mills had won an oscar and a bafta. And the green cockatoo is the name of jim's pub. It's not bad. Pretty simple story.

This is a real mixed bag of a film, which could have been a lot better if the screenplay had been kept more taut and tense. The basis of Graham Greene's novel is certainly there, as are some of the characterisations with Rene Ray as wide-eyed innocent in the big city, and Robert Newton playing a low-key role to good effect. There's even TV's Fabian of the Yard, Bruce Seton, playing a gangster. The one major cuckoo in the nest is John Mills, who is quite hopelessly miscast in the lead role. He comes across as a watered down, British version of James Cagney! In a long and distinguished film career, this is probably his most forgettable performance. The changes in his accent are pretty hilarious, and some of the dialogue phony, to say the least. On the plus side, the photography is impressive, in that an atmosphere of the dingy side of the city is invoked, and the gangsters look suitably menacing. And, it could be said to be a forerunner of the later film noir series from the USA. Unfortunately, as other reviewers have pointed out, it is too talky with not enough action, and could have been a lot better given the talent at its disposal.

With direction from William Cameron Menzies and a script by Graham Greene, The Green Cockatoo should have come out a whole lot better than it was. The film was what we call a B production and over there they call a quota quickie. In this case quick was not good because haste made some sloppy waste.

Young Rene Ray a girl from the sticks arrives in London and almost before she knows it she's got herself involved with gangster Robert Newton who gets stabbed by another mob for betraying them in a dog race fixing scheme. Newton dies in her room, but not before naming his killers and telling her to get in touch with his brother John Mills who has a song and dance act at a club in Soho called The Green Cockatoo.

The biggest thing that The Green Cockatoo has is that it shows off some musical talents that a lot of fans including myself didn't know that John Mills possessed. Unfortunately Graham Greene's script is rather incoherent, possibly the fault of some bad editing on this quota quickie.

Both Mills and Newton would certainly go on to bigger and better things. I'm sure neither was impressed by The Green Cockatoo as I wasn't.

What stands out most of all from this film are the credits.The film was directed by William Cameron Menzies at Denham just after "Things To Come".It was from a Graham Greene story.It was photographed by Mutz Greenbaum(Max Greene) who was one of Herbert Wilcox's favourite DOPs and the music was by Miklos Roza,one of the numerous Hungarians brought over to work in the UK by his compatriot Alexander Korda.So not your average quota quickie.I first saw this when i hired a 16mm print in the 1960s.I saw it again yesterday.I have to say it is fairly entertaining.A young Robert Newton for once not overplaying.A young John Mills reminding us that he started out as a singing juvenile lead.His performance is a bit off key.He seems at times to be in a Warners crime film of the thirties doing his Cagney impersonation before doing his Gordon Harker impression.A really enjoyable reminder of a now moribund genre.