The Franchise Affair

I was drawn to this by its top-rank cast and I was glad that I stayed with it. It sets out its stall in the first 15/20 minutes and it it is one of those 'who do you beleive' type of thrillers. It dips somewhat in the middle (the Kenneth More character is entirely superfluous) but once it reaches the court scenes the satisfactory tying-up of its diverse plot lines is excellent and example of how these things should be done.

I would not be put off from watching this very enjoyable movie by some of the opinions posted here. THE FRANCHISE AFFAIR is a movie you should seek out because it is, simply, very well made.

The 1951 film was based on the Josephine Tey novel - recently voted by the Crime Writer's Association as one of the Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time - and her novel was in turn based on a true 18th century case, that of Elizabeth Canning. Canning was a woman who accused two other women of kidnapping her and forcing her to become a prostitute. As the evidence against them grows a lawyer very reluctantly agrees to take on their case.

The film was made in moody black and white, nicely photographed by Gunther Krampf, a cameraman who began his career shooting beautiful silent films in Germany before emigrating to Britain in the late 1930s. His work has graced many a film. The story was updated by author Tey to the present time and the movie presents pleasant views of English village life in the 1940s. The script is extremely well-written. True, it contains a good deal of dialog, literate dialog I might add, but I believe this enhances the story-telling in the picture rather than takes away from it.

The acting is, as always with films made in the golden years of British film making, top-notch. I was more than a little amused by the criticism of one writer on this site who disparaged Mr Denison's acting and of another who called the acting "stilted". I suppose if one is accustomed to the hilarious, idiotically over-the-top acting style of today it is hard to adjust to genuinely fine acting. Again, do not be put off by comments like this: the acting is first-rate all down the line. Look for future British film stars in small roles here and there, and relish the delightfully dotty performance of the great Athene Seyler as the lawyer's mother. Such witty and well-judged performances like those are always worth a look.

THE FRANCHISE AFFAIR is very highly recommended.

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.

Saw this yesterday for the first time.... started watching casually, but was soon drawn into the plot. Thought the direction was spot on , and the tension was ramped up wonderfully.

Yes the dialogue was a tad clipped, but it was 1951 for goodness sake, but I thought the script was bang on , with some wonderful cameos( apart from Kenneth Moore, as said elsewhere on here who's role was superfluous)

This film was a real gem, and would recommend it to anyone.