The Franchise Affair

To my chagrin, I know nothing about Director Lawrence Huntington. After watching THE FRANCHISE AFFAIR, the keener my regret about my ignorance.

THE FRANCHISE AFFAIR, a fine novel by Josephine Tey, is competently, classily and unpretentiously transposed to the silver screen by Huntington and Robert Hall, relying to a considerable extent on a superior performance from the male lead, Michael Denison - about whom, equally regrettably, I know just as little.

That said, Denison and female lead Dulcie Gray were married in real life, and certainly you feel a stable and solid connection between them (their marriage lasted over 60 years).

Very good support performances from the elderly and highly dignified Marjorie Fielding, a very young Kenneth More as a mechanic, the beautiful Hy Hazell as the key witness. The only performance I found wanting was that of Ann Stephens as Betty, the mendacious accuser, but perhaps the fault also lies with her part which, in my view, should have made her motivations more clear.

Excellent cinematography by Günther Krampf and editing by Clifford Boote.

Definitely worth watching - more than once, too! 8/10.

A reasonably faithful adaptation of Josephine Tey's 1948 novel based on an actual case of alleged kidnapping nearly two hundred years earlier; but also all too common unfortunately in the twenty-first century.

It begins rather like 'Kiss Me Deadly' with a flimsily dressed young woman thumbing a lift at night, while the mob violence unleashed against the two 'outsiders' recalls 'Le Corbeau'. But for the most part it's content to amble along without much sense of urgency as you scratch your head pondering over the 'why' rather than the 'what'?

Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray (real life husband and wife for 60 years!) star in "The Franchise Affair" from 1951.

This film is based on a novel by Josephine Tey, which I read years ago and remember very well. The movie is a good adaptation.

The first scene shows a dishelved, bruised young woman, Betty Kane (Ann Stephens) who runs to her home in the dark after exiting a bus.

Denison plays Robert Blair, a British solicitor who is approached by Marion Sharpe, who lives with her mother (Marjorie Fielding) in a large house called The Franchise. The young woman is question is accusing Marion and her mother of holding her prisoner for several weeks and forcing her to work for them.

Betty had been visiting a relative and seems to have overstayed, but when her mother contacts the relative, Betty had already left. So where was she? And with whom?

Marion is fighting to remain calm, but it's terrifying. Betty knows all kinds of details about the grounds that she could not have seen from a bus, for instance, and describes the room where she was kept in perfect detail.

Though Blair doesn't take criminal cases, he's sympathetic toward the womens' plight and agrees to help. The women have to handle hate mail, hate phone calls, and rocks through their windows. Blair asks the local garage man for help, and he agrees to stay in the house.

Meanwhile, Blair is desperate to get some evidence against Betty Kane. He believes the Sharpes.

Very good movie with Kenneth More in a smaller role as the garage mechanic.

Very entertaining.

The film sticks closely to the book, which is a plus. It was made soon after the war, and some of the events recall what people had been through - being demonised and having mobs graffiti your premises and throw rocks through your window, and worse.

The acting is fine, especially from old Mrs Sharp. The makers avoided the temptation to have the other characters comment on her saltiness - she just comes out with her rather acid quips. She is funny, and so is Michael Deniston as Robert Blair, the solicitor.

I agree with the commenter who regretted the static nature of the filming - yes, it is stagey. Characters don't move much, and there are few close-ups or reaction shots.

The working-class characters are more prominent in the book, but they are well-played by such as Kenneth More and Patrick Troughton.

40s films gained by the glamour and style of women's clothes and hairdos. What went so wrong in the 50s!?!? Betty Kane is supposed to look frumpy in her school clothes, but poor Dulcie Gray is saddled with middle-aged clothes and a hair-don't.

Small town solicitor Michael Denison is called in when two of his clients, Dulcie Gray and her aunt Marjorie fielding, are accused by Ann Stephens of kidnapping her and holding her at their estate to be a maid of all work. She describes the grounds and the room she was kept in, and an examination by the police show she knows the place. The village turns against the ladies, even as Denison develops feelings for Miss Gray.

Despite the derivation from a novel by Josephine Tey, I did not find this a particularly compelling movie. Things go from bad to worse, yet it only takes ten minutes in court to settle out what actually happened. Unprefigured witnesses pop up, with simple explanations of why they hadn't been heard from before. Despite a cast which includes Athene Seyler, Hy Hazell, and Patrick Troughton, there's nothing here but adequate performances in a poorly composed mystery.