The Green Cockatoo

From the prolific writer graham greene. Eileen is heading to london to look for work. When she arrives, she crosses paths with a mob of crooks and murderers. And dave connor, the man they are after. She's completely innocent, but is now in it up to her eyebrows! Falsely accused, she's on the run. Can eileen stay out of jail long enough to prove her innocence? To the coppers, and to jim ? Pretty good suspense. Low budget shortie B film from twentieth century. Directed by william menzies. Greene was nominated for one of his other works, fallen idol. Menzies had already won two oscars for other works. The lead, john mills had won an oscar and a bafta. And the green cockatoo is the name of jim's pub. It's not bad. Pretty simple story.

A gangster, Dave (Robert Newton) who double-crosses some other gangsters finds himself in desperate trouble in "The Green Cockatoo."

Warned by his brother Jim (John Mills) to get out of town quickly, Dave goes to the train station. He has an altercation with the gang and is knifed. He latches onto a young woman, Eileen (Rene Ray) who has just arrived in London from a small town. He tells her that he can bring her to a good place to stay, and she accompanies him.

You really have to suspend disbelief that a young woman would just go off with a stranger. And it gets better. Once she's in her room, and he has left, he suddenly returns. I'd be screaming my lungs out.

However, she sees that he's hurt and agrees to help him. Unfortunately, he dies, and the landlady thinks she did it. Before he dies, he gives her a message for his brother at the Green Cockatoo.

With the police and the gang after her, she finds The Green Cockatoo. She doesn't know anything about Jim, a song and dance man there, and to get away from her followers, she starts wandering around the upstairs of the club. She meets Jim, not realizing he's the man she's looking for.

Despite Eileen's strange behavior in the beginning, this is a fun film. John Mills is delightful singing and dancing. In one scene, as he attempts to hide Eileen from the police, he says she is his new performing partner.

He sings "Smoky Joe" - all she has to do is say the words "Smoky Joe" when he pauses. It's hilarious. She is supposed to not be able to sing, but you can tell by her off-key "Smoky Joes" that she actually had a good voice.

Recommended - nice British noir from 1937.

At the start of his career, Robert Newton connected with producer Alexander Korda, who introduced him to film audiences in 1937 with small parts in a few movies. He played a barrister alongside Laurence Olivier in 21 Days Together, which was shelved for three years, shared a scene with Vivien Leigh in Dark Journey, acted with both in Fire Over England, and was in I, Claudius, which was shelved for thirty years. It was his memorable, likable role in The Green Cockatoo that propelled him to the next batch of films. By 1939, he was a star.

Robert Newton starts off The Green Cockatoo in confident, Cockney swagger. He doesn't seem at all like an inexperienced actor, and as you watch him, you've completely forgotten that John Mills got billed above the title in the opening credits. He's a bit of a bad boy, and when he crosses his gambling cohorts, he receives the ultimate punishment. He's only onscreen for fifteen minutes, but since he was so magnetic during his scenes, and since he's talked about by the other characters the rest of the movie, it feels like he had a much bigger part.

Alas, we have to say goodbye to Bobbie. The good news is John Mills takes over and is just as magnetic. He punches bad guys, flirts around with the beautiful romantic lead, Rene Ray, and is more energetic than I've ever seen him. Plus, when he gets mad and his hair gets mussed, he's awfully cute. But more importantly, he does a very good job in this obscure movie as a completely different character than he usually plays. He plays a performer in a nightclub, and he sings and tap dances, showing talents no one knew he had!

Rene Ray is given a difficult part: her character is incredibly stupid, but she has to make the audience root for her anyway. She's very pretty, and that doesn't hurt, but she manages to convince the audience she has very good intentions. Even though I didn't agree with what she was doing, I was rooting for her anyway.

Obviously, I liked this movie, so I'll recommend you give it a watch. It's only an hour long, so you might want to pair it with another flick for the evening, like Odd Man Out. But it's very entertaining, and you get to see John Mills tap dance!

This has some good ingredients to make a jolly, if not exactly, menacing murder story - but it's all just way too fluffy and talky. The doey-eyed Rene Ray is "Eileen" who arrives into London very late one night. At the station, she encounters "Dave" (Robert Newton) who offers to show her an hotel where she might pass the night. What she doesn't know, is that her good Samaritan has fallen foul of some crooks and a station fracas ensues and he is mortally injured. Before he croaks, he gives her a message to give to his brother "Jim" (John Mills) in the eponymous nightclub. She meets the brother, but a rather unlikely series of mishaps befall the pair as they are being sought by the police and the hoodlums. Aside from some singing and dancing that one wouldn't normally attribute to John Mills, the thing is entirely procedural with little by way suspense or peril; and saving a rather curious performance from Frank Atkinson as the butler "Protheroe" would be instantly forgettable.

This is a real mixed bag of a film, which could have been a lot better if the screenplay had been kept more taut and tense. The basis of Graham Greene's novel is certainly there, as are some of the characterisations with Rene Ray as wide-eyed innocent in the big city, and Robert Newton playing a low-key role to good effect. There's even TV's Fabian of the Yard, Bruce Seton, playing a gangster. The one major cuckoo in the nest is John Mills, who is quite hopelessly miscast in the lead role. He comes across as a watered down, British version of James Cagney! In a long and distinguished film career, this is probably his most forgettable performance. The changes in his accent are pretty hilarious, and some of the dialogue phony, to say the least. On the plus side, the photography is impressive, in that an atmosphere of the dingy side of the city is invoked, and the gangsters look suitably menacing. And, it could be said to be a forerunner of the later film noir series from the USA. Unfortunately, as other reviewers have pointed out, it is too talky with not enough action, and could have been a lot better given the talent at its disposal.