The Green Cockatoo

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.

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.

I've just seen this film tonight and since nobody else appears to have done a comment, I'll do it while it's fresh in my mind. Briefly, the story concerns the murder of Robert Newton who has double-crossed a gang who fix greyhound races. (The track seen briefly in the film appears to be Hackney.) John Mills plays Newton's brother and Rene Ray the girl who is wrongly suspected of the murder. I'm sure John Mills will be the first to agree that his accent varies wildly throughout the film- he seems to be doing a sort of James Cagney character with a bit of posh West End and cockney thrown in. Robert Newton comes out best although he dies early on. Bruce Seton plays a bad guy; we're used to seeing him as a policeman. The action sequences are well done, (they were obviously trying to make the film as tough as possible) but the talk goes on far too long between the fights.

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.

This feels more like something from the fifties rather than the thirties. It's dark, moody and grittily realistic. It's a beautifully photographed really atmospheric Film Noir.... just a shame that John Mills is so utterly awful.

Were John Mills not in this, it would have been something special. People might today reflect on it being the first proper Film Noir. All the classic tropes of that genre are perfectly exemplified in this... but John Mills, no! Why he was cast as a seedy, back-street club owner defies all known logic. His character was clearly based on James Cagney but Mills' impersonation of the great man is truly cringey. You want to hide behind the sofa with embarrassment for him as he trots out lines which seem straight out of an early Warner Brothers gangster flick - on the level! Any minute you're expecting him to call someone a dirty rat. Clean cut thirty year old John Mills is not a gangster.

It's so difficult to ignore this ridiculous casting that it spoils the whole picture which is a shame because apart from him, it's actually a good film. If you didn't know better you'd guess it was made at least a decade later. The acting is a million miles away from what you'd expect from a 1930s film - incredibly realistic and natural. Lovely Rène Ray is perfect as the sweet naive young thing plunged helplessly onto the nightmare rollercoaster ride into an unimaginable unknown.... but John Mills - no!