A Cruz do Meu Destino

Stewart Grainger plays Stephen Lowry, an initially sympathetic character. The audience's goodwill dissipates rapidly however, when he maltreats the family cat: some things a hero should never do. He is guilty of even worse, too, but that's not for this review. Suffice it to say that he meets his match and it's then that things become really interesting. Jean Simmons is Lily Watkins, another character who holds our sympathies - but should she? Such is the nature of this terrifically twisting plot that you never really know.

The intrigue takes on a darker turn and thus provides the thrust of the story. All this in a richly furnished, luxurious house that quickly becomes cold and unfriendly - a terrific setting for the bleak drama, all furnished with a host of well-known faces like Victor Maddern, Bill Travers, Peter Bull and the original Doctor Who, William Hartnell. My score is 8 out of 10.

"Footsteps in the Fog" is a truly excellent Victorian drama starring husband and wife team Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons.

Granger plays Stephen Lowry, a man who has murdered his wife and gotten away with it; Simmons plays his maid, Lily, who knows he did it. There are two different paths he can take to keep her quiet. He prefers one way; she prefers the other.

Meanwhile, Lowry has fallen for a beautiful woman, Elizabeth Travers (the luminous Belinda Lee) of his own class, and, after a suitable period of mourning, wants to marry her.

The fly in the ointment there is a solicitor, David MacDonald (Bill Travers) who is also in love with Elizabeth and very suspicious of Lowry's behavior. When Lowry is accused of a crime, Elizabeth asks David to take the case.

This is a really neat film with a surprise ending. The acting is wonderful, as is the atmosphere, which captures not only the danger in certain scenes but the whole ambiance of Victorian London.

Jean Simmons to my mind has always been underrated. She does an excellent job here as the quietly wily Lily. Granger is attractive and plays the fairly unflappable Lowry very well.

Sadly, the gorgeous Lee would die a few years later, at the age of 26, in a car accident. Not only is she lovely in the role, but no expense was spared for her costumes, especially that blue gown.

Filmed in color. Highly recommended. A real buried treasure.

This movie is certainly one of the best victorian-era thriller melodramas ever made. The atmosphere is perfect (at least according to what we expect victorian atmosphere to be). Both Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons give wonderful performances, each being ideally cast in his/her role. The suspense builds up perfectly, answering the viewers question as to how the katharsis will come at the end. And it is a very satisfying solution - with the exception perhaps of the last words said by Jean Simmons. All in all an excellent movie that deserves much wider recognition than it actually enjoys.

She died last weekend aged 80, a great star whose career never seemed to find a summit, forestalled by middling films and imprecise casting. While this Edwardian Gothic gave her one of her more intriguing roles I've always felt she was too beautiful for it. If Lily the blackmailing housemaid had been less attractive the dangerous affair with her murderous employer would have felt a lot darker, seamier and her final pathos - the little skivvy whose dream-world collapses around her - more acute. When the Grangers are together they look perfectly suited - a married star-team of their day. Full marks to their performances, though.

While one or two plot-twists are far too facile - the brother-in-law mistaking the barrister for Lowry just because he comes out of a room, for instance - Arthur Lubin's direction gets the points across clearly and efficiently though lacking the Hitchcock intensity and lingering touches which might have made this a minor classic. A solid Technicolor production there's nonetheless a certain aura of rush and tweaking here and there with odd continuity slips and scenes that suddenly trail away in mid-sentence. Some bad processing is evident when the rather wet second-leads go driving together in the new horseless-carriage, which at least provides some topically amusing light-relief. But it's a memorable little show overall, good to watch with a last glimpse of Granger that's quite clammy - and now to be cherished more than ever as another movie-icon slips away from us in the dark.

A great cast makes this Victorian thriller a near-classic, hampered only by a low budget. Stewart Granger stars as a recent widower who is in fact a murderer. This fact is known only to one of his his servants (Jean Simmons), who uses this knowledge to improve her station. When the wily widower ends up in a romantic relationship with a woman of his own class, he decides to put an end to the servant. From this point, everything that can go wrong does, and the clever twist ending is a real hoot. A young Bill Travers plays a barrister in love with the woman the widower has his eyes (an lips) on. Since the movie is working with almost no budget, the action is played out on basically three sets, so that it feels a bit like a theatrical play. No harm done in the end, as it is well written and wonderfully acted. Simmons absolutely shines.