Father Brown, Detective

Flambeau has stolen ten valuable diamonds, Father Brown is intent on getting them back, and saving the criminal's soul.

Quite a fun adaptation this, I didn't quite know what to expect having watched it directly after the 1954 film starting Alec Guinness.

I quite liked the story, it looked pretty good, and for the most past was well made and well acted. Considering it dates back to 1934, I think it's quite nicely made, it's an attractive looking film, nice costumes and sets.

It's perhaps a little slow in parts, and as a non catholic, I felt it a little preachy at times, but then it was made a long time ago, so I can forgive that.

I rather liked Walter Connolly as the title character, I found him very believable, that right mix of Priest and Amateur sleuth, a good performance.

Paul Lukas, did a fair job as Flambeau, I'm not sure it was for most dynamic interpretation of the great thief.

Pretty good, 6/10.

In "Father Brown, Detective", Walter Connelly plays the fictional detective and the baddie in this one is Flambeau (Paul Lukas), an international theif who has been able to elude police. This is apparently because Flambeau is a master of disguise (something I would beg to differ with then the great crook is hiding as a priest...as it's obviously Flambeau). But Father Brown is less interested in capturing the crook but reforming him...something which doed differ from the original tale.

The film is talky and I fell asleep several times....a sure sign the movie should have had more zip. Not terrible by any standard, but also a bit of a diappointment.

Walter Connolly is Father Brown in this version of his duel with Flambeau, played by Paul Lukas. Lukas wants the diamond-encrusted crucifix that Connolly always carries. He wants to give the diamonds to Gertrude Michael, whom he loves. The police, in the persons of Scotland Yard Inspector Robert Loraine, and his sergeant, E. E. Clive, want him for his past crimes. And Connolly wants him for G*d. Because the movie is not so much about Connolly, but about the redemption of Lukas.

It's not the movie. You'd expect a comedy expert like Eddie Sedgwick to direct, but it's the most accurate film version of Brown I've ever seen.... although that is not saying much. Connolly plays the priest with a humility I have not seen before, and Sedgwick manages to get a nice comic sequence when Lukas, disguised as a Portuguese priest, walks with Connolly about London. With Halliwell Hobbes and Una O'Connor.

Unfortunate that this is the sole outing of Father Brown with Walter Connolly as the lead. His Father Brown captures the essence of G. K. Chesterton's eponymous detective.

Paul Lukas basically plays Paul Lukas as Flambeau, the master thief who has an ongoing competition with Father Brown. Although Lukas had an expansive and impressive film career, he played the same character whether he was Flambeau or Prof. Pierre Aronnax (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) or Stein (Lord Jim).

In this film Flambeau announces his intention to steal ten diamonds including those on the cross belonging to Father Brown. It's fun to watch Father Brown leave a trail of clues for the police to follow as he leads Flambeau on to a possible repentance. But can Flambeau change into an honest man? I can only hope not as Flambeau is a most interesting thief.

It's both interesting and instructive to compare the two movie versions of "The Blue Cross". In the Paramount picture, the writers cleverly preserve the maguffin of the tale, namely the ingenious yet simple way in which Brown outwits his adversary, yet change the character of the priest himself. In the British picture, however, Brown's astonishing ingenuity is completely ignored, other than his re-swapping the parcels (a commonplace feat common to both films); yet, although he indulges in no abstruse theological debates, the Guinness' Brown is far more faithful to G.K. Chesterton's conception.

Frankly, despite Chesterton's disapproval, I prefer Connolly, who makes Brown a believable priest, not an argumentative theology basher lecturing on "the real difference between human charity and Christian charity" and similar peripheral, philosophical subjects ("The Chief Mourner of Marne", page 583 in the Cassell omnibus edition).

Walter Connolly and his scriptwriters imbue Brown with a quality that Guinness and company don't even attempt: Spirituality! The only other movie occasion in which I've seen this essential quality brought into the open was in the character played by Burgess Meredith in The Cardinal (1963). With Connolly, however, this virtue is not drawn to the audience's attention. It's just there! In a gesture, a wink, an attitude or simply part of the actor's charisma. Connolly's performance transcends "acting". He really is Father Brown. On the other hand, with Guinness we always have the impression that here is Guinness again most ably playing his customary screen character, this time under the label, Father Brown.

Although he is not the Flambeau described in the books, Paul Lukas does well in the part and receives excellent support from lovely Gertrude Michael. Hobbes, of course, is his usual aristocratic self. And also much as usual, alas, is Una O'Connor, complete with trademark squawk. Fortunately, her role is small.

Technical credits are first-class.