Nuvens de Desespero

If it weren't for good old Trevor Howard, this film would not be nearly so interesting. He is always enjoyable to watch, as he is always convincing and we want to see what he will get up to. Here he is thrown out of MI-6, the foreign secret service, rather unceremoniously after years of brilliant service in the field, and has to find some work. He ends up taking a temporary job cataloguing butterflies, of which the Clouded Yellow is a particularly pretty one which comes across the English Channel in a good summer and flutters around as delightfully as Jean Simmons. And yes, she is living in the rambling country house where the butterfly collection is. She is the psychologically disturbed and mysteriously orphaned niece of a rather creepy aunt and uncle. Or at least they say, rather too often, that Jean is psychologically disturbed. But is she really? Did she witness as a very young child what really happened to her parents? They say she 'found them'. But did she see who killed them? Clearly there is some vintage mystery material here. Jean Simmons at this stage in her career had very bushy eyebrows and looked more like a trapped wild animal than a girl. Alas, she did not have the magically convincing wildness of Jennifer Jones in GONE TO EARTH (1950, see my review), or this film could have become something of a classic. The direction by Ralph Thomas is also rather uninspired and pedestrian. So this film never really rises to the level of a butterfly's flight. Come to that, the story is pretty contrived and corny. The film is a tasty amuse-bouche, but should never be confused with a main course.

Sort of paint-by-numbers Hitchcock. But still, it probably comes closer to the style of the master than any other pretender with the exception of "Niagara".

Hitch always liked a story with some odd eccentricities to the plot. This story has a butterfly collector, a taxidermist, and some shady Chinese Liverpudlians.

But you can tell it's not Hitch easily enough. I believe it's the pacing, which never reaches a nail-biting pitch of intensity -- more like nail-drumming. I hope someone more astute than I will analyse precisely what marks this film as ultimately un-Hitchcock.

The film's ending is very abrupt and more than a little unsatisfying, with the loose ends being tied up in a slip knot.

An important element in many a great Hitchcock film is the pursuit sequence through imaginative locations. At least we are not disappointed in that respect. Besides Liverpool, our hero and heroine are hunted through night-time Newcastle which is made to resemble Vienna in an earlier Trevor Howard film, "The Third Man". Some of the best chase scenes take place among the hills, lakes, and waterfalls of the English Switzerland -- the Lake District, at that time in Cumberland (hence the name of the bus line) and Westmorland.

Our beautiful English Swiss Miss, Jean Simmons, seems to be more voluptuous here than she would be later in her career, but perhaps I'm mistaken.

The film's mysterious title refers to a variety of butterfly found in a meadow near the collector's house.

A young woman (Jean Simmons) is convinced by her scheming and dangerous aunt (Sonia Dresdel) and uncle (Barry Jones) that she's losing her mind and in very delicate condition that requires their supervision which turns out to be more like manipulation, as they try to keep her as far away from outside human contact as possible. The only other person she sees is the estate caretaker, a lascivious character played by Maxwell Reed, whose caught the wayward eye of the middle-aged aunt. All of this, the aunt and the caretaker, the butterfly expert uncle who has a serious underside to him, and the susceptible niece in the middle, would have made for a darker and more sinister film. As it is, a frame-up for a murder sends Trevor Howard (a fired government secret service agent who took a job at the estate cataloging butterflies) and Simmons across the countryside escaping police, catching headlines of "Police Net Closing In" over her front page photo, hopping on buses, and winding up in Liverpool, where they meet some wonderfully cast characters, and finally face down the greedy and murderous aunt and uncle.

CLOUDED YELLOW is a favourite from my schooldays because of its basic ingredients - a haunting mystery, a fascinating chase across England from a deceptively-drowsy Hampshire to the bustle of Liverpool docks, a rousing climax and the only on-screen teaming of two great British stars. Hitchcock was the obvious model, a factor utilised in the marketing of the recent DVD and the director Ralph Thomas actually remade THE 39 STEPS - very flatly - at the end of the decade. Thomas was a prolific journeyman of variable competence, turning out thrillers, war films, adventure stories, historical dramas and comedies (most notably DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE) but lacked the personality to conjure a classic.

David Somers (Trevor Howard) is an M.I.6 agent - a sort of low-key James Bond without the glamour - who's put on the back-burner after botching an operation. He opts for a job cataloguing butterflies (hence the title) at a rural retreat where he involves himself in the troubles of Sophie (Jean Simmons) the young ward of the house who's suspected of murder when the local bad-lad (Maxwell Reed), with whom she'd been quarrelling, is found with a knife in his back. Somers takes it upon himself to extricate this trapped butterfly from police hostility (very Hitch) and smuggle her out of the country with the help of his contacts. Despite the presence of Kenneth More on the sidelines (waiting for the big break so soon to come) there's no (conscious) humour in the film at all and no Hitch-tension between the leads. Though motivated by a romantic attachment as well as the urge to atone for past mistakes Somers seems more a father-figure than a potential lover. No teasy-weasy handcuffs and wet stockings here, it's all very stiff upper-lip and he never questions her innocence though the girl remains an enigma until near the end. As a child she'd witnessed the violent death of her parents but has blocked out the memory (very SPELLBOUND). When she starts to get it back the real perpetrator of crimes past and present turns up in Liverpool to silence her. What follows is like watching MIDSOMER MURDERS turn into THE PERILS OF PAULINE complete with cliff-hanger. Wildly over-the-top and completely illogical it's great hare-brained fun and very gripping. Whether this startling gear-change was originally planned or came about during production is unclear. The film certainly terminates very abruptly with the pair in long-shot walking away together over the rooftops, arms around each other, though the gentleman at this moment looks about a foot taller than Mr. Howard. Hitchcockery is catching. In the changed ending to SUSPICION we're given a back-of-heads shot of Grant and Fontaine where the heads quite obviously aren't theirs.

Ralph Thomas does bring off one nifty Hitch trick quite well. Somers appears to capitulate to pursuing cops and sends them into a restaurant to pick the girl up. When they reach her table she's no longer there and a brassy blonde greets them instead while Somers too has cleared off. Nice one. Hitch would smile.

If The Clouded Yellow had been made by Alfred Hitchcock, it would be hailed as one of the great classic thrillers. As it is, Betty E. Box produced the film, and no one has remembered it. I found it just as enjoyable as a Master of Suspense movie, and in fact, better than most of his films.

Trevor Howard, practically unrecognizable in his youth and mustache, plays a retired Secret Service agent who takes a quiet job in the country categorizing butterflies. While his employers and landlords seem nice enough, their niece Jean Simmons seems a little off—and not just because of her ridiculous bangs. She forgets things and has mysterious amnesia of key memories from her childhood, or so she says.

Because of his previous employment, Trevor has a naturally curious mind, so he can't help but notice that Jean's aunt isn't as fond of her niece as she claims, and the local handyman is paying an unhealthy amount of attention towards his married employer. As in every great Hitchcock, when the chips fall down, suspicion is thrown in every direction! For a very entertaining, classic thriller, rent The Clouded Yellow on a foggy afternoon.