Prigioniero della paura

The superb John Mills plays a man with a history of emotional imbalance. He moves into a rooming house peopled by the sorts who might be charming in a Barbara Pym novel. Here they are increasingly less charming: There's the classic nosy landlady. There's an elderly resident who begs for more coal on the fire: The way she's written to do this made me think of a leitmotif from an Eliot poem.

There's a homely bachelor; there's an attractive young woman involved with a married man. And, there are assorted eccentrics thrown in as well.

Mills meets Joan Greenwood, she of the dark, husky voice. And a murder takes place.

That's all I will say, lest I give anything at all away: Try hard to see this little beauty of a film, knowing as little of the plot in advance as I did. Indeed, before today, I had never heard of it.

If it were an American film of this period it would be called a film noir. It has all the elements but I don't think I'd call it one. It's a psychological thriller, a mystery.

The secondary roles are cast superbly in every case. It's tense, filled with fascinating characters -- it lacks almost nothing. And the two stars could scarcely be better.

I first heard of this 1947 British film in one of Leslie Halliwell's books. Written by Eric Ambler and directed by Roy Baker, it's kind of a British answer to Hollywod's noir, essentially a reworking of Grahame Greene's Ministry Of Fear. Chemist (and I do mean "chemist", not pharmacist or apothecary) John Mills blames himself for the death a friend's daughter in a bus crash, which also gives Mills a concussion and tendencies towards blackouts and amnesia. Quicker than you can say "Alfred Hitchcock" Mills is accused of murdering a fellow resident of his boarding house, and poor old John can't remember if he did it or not. What's most fascinating to me is the subtext -- Mills is clearly supposed to represent returning war veterans, but the film's makers were too afraid to have war wounds be the source of his blackouts (even though H'wood had already done it in The Blue Dahlia) and instead resorted to the bus crash contrivance. There is effective direction by Baker (who went to H'wood and made the classic 3D "depthie" Inferno, later returning to England to do A Night To Remember) and Ambler's script is good, with a few surprise scattered throughout.

This post-war (1947) English psychological thriller directed by Roy Ward Baker is distinguished by its superb photography in deep blacks and brilliant whites by the German-English lighting cameraman Erwin Hillier who had been a camera assistant on Fritz Lang's "M" and Murnau's "Tabu." Hillier uses the expressionistic techniques associated with these German director's film's to create a complex series of highlights and shadows, contrasting high and low angle camera compositions to create a atmosphere of both glossy glamour and terrifying suspense. It's a shame that Hillier and Hitchcock never worked together. What a team they might have made!

A wonderful old black and white British film, that has John Mills suffering from a head injury sustained in a bus crash, is the suspect in a murder mystery, when a girl that he has helped out with some money, has been found dead. Good performances from the whole cast and the audience is kept in suspense up to the final scenes as to weather the murderer will escape.

One of the best pieces of acting I've seen John Mills do is in this film The October Man. It takes part of its plot from Laura and part of it from the American film High Wall that starred Robert Taylor.

Mills as he did on so many occasions was the British average Joe who as it happens suffers a traumatic brain injury as a result of a train wreck. He blacks out and comes back with no apparent rhyme or reason and his treating doctor Felix Aylmer says that's likely to go on for some time. No reason though he can't resume normal life and employment.

Which he does and starts living at a boarding house with the usual amount of busybodies. He even gets a relationship of sorts going with both Joan Greenwood and Kay Walsh. But when Walsh turns up murdered, Mills is looking real good for it to Scotland Yard guys Frederick Piper and John Boxer.

Of course Mills didn't do it, but the fascinating thing with The October Man is that we do learn before the end who did do it and that individual confesses to Mills. The perpetrator is also a mentally unstable, but has learned to hide it. And it looks very much as if Mills will not be able to prove his innocence.

The focus of The October Man is on Mills's plight. It's one of the best pieces of acting I've ever seen from John Mills. He does you really do think he's about to get into a jackpot not of his own doing.

The October Man was very much influenced by Hollywood noir, although I'm sure our friends across the pond could say our noir films were influenced by this. It's a very moody cinematographic piece with expert use of shadow and lights. And John Mills is heartbreaking in the role.

Don't miss this if it is ever broadcast again on this side of the Atlantic.