Yellow Canary

Love a good spy picture, especially those involving double agents and counter spies, and this is one of them. Richard Greene is at his most appealing as a pesty passenger/spy and Anna Neagle is a Nazi sympathizer/ counter spy who meets a Polish national onboard a ship to Halifax who is actually a Nazi operative. Great stuff when you put it all together and add a sinister Nazi espionage plan (is there any other kind of Nazi plan?).

Richard Greene is essential to the main plot, and don't go to the fridge during the passage to Halifax or you will miss a clever bit of deception involving Greene's character, as well as scenes with Margaret Rutherford, who is as delightful as always. "Yellow Canary" is well worth spending the 85 minutes running time. It is entertaining and contains the necessary moments of suspense and excitement that make movie-going so worthwhile.

It's 1940. Observers notice a possible signal to the German bombers up above but Sally Maitland (Anna Neagle) escapes leaving behind a dead body. She is suspected of being a Nazi sympathizer as she boards a ship to Halifax in Canada. She is approached separately by Jim Garrick (Richard Greene) and Polish officer Jan Orlock (Albert Lieven). Apparently, no one is who they appear to be or even pretend to be.

I actually like this movie while they are on the boat. It's fascinating to figure who's who and what's what in a contained location. There is a sense of claustrophobia and a lack of escape. They're trapped. When the Nazis get on board, it elevates the situation but then it goes flat. I start losing the thread of the characters. I don't know why the Nazi would just leave. They should at least execute a few of the passengers. The ship is a vastly better location for a thriller. Once the movie switches to Halifax, the sense of danger lowers. It's not a scary place even if the plot demands it to be important. The most compelling reveal is the truth about the opening scene. This is fine but the second half is a bit flat.

The U. S. version of this film (and also a Spanish-subtitled version on Amazon, apparently) is missing around 11 minutes near the beginning. The minutes are rather important, because they include a scene at the protagonist's home that is helpful for later developments. Those minutes also include Nova Pilbeam, who plays the protagonist's sister. This is the version shown on TCM. However, there is a seemingly complete version currently (2021) available on youtube, and the viewer should watch the first quarter-hour there. I thought I was alerted to this fact here on IMDb, and I wanted to thank the user, but I can't find the note. It must have been two reviewers of the Spanish-subtitled version on Amazon. Enjoyable film, more enjoyable with the minutes included. Happy to see Richard Greene, because I always used to watch him in Robin Hood when I was a child. Margaret Rutherford is terrific in her small parts, and Anna Neagle is very good too.

I was pleasantly surprised by this film, filled with twists and turns it feels wrong to give too much away so I'll keep my review brief.

The acting is all decent, everyone gives quite a funny and memorable performance with maybe a couple exceptions. The cinematography is surprisingly good with it mostly feeling pretty standard but sometimes delivering some very dynamic shots with oners and odd angles.

The negative aspects of this film are few but the first half of the film is slightly boring and the editing is incredibly plain, just fades and cuts, nothing very interesting. I also think that the film could do with subtitles when Nazis are speaking, I have a basic knowledge of German but with the sound quality and speed they were speaking I struggled to understand anything they said and while this didn't really matter much to the plot it still would have been nice, even if it may have ruined a couple reveals towards the end. Still this film was surprisingly good, if they remade it today I would be well up for watching it again 7/10.

Readily admitting that I know nothing about Director Herbert Wilcox, I am grateful to IMDB for affording the important - and extremely interesting - piece of information that he was married to the film's female lead, the elegant Anna Neagle, who is also filmed to her advantage as befits a director in love with his star.

Other curiosities are that the excellent support cast includes the great Margaret Rutherford as the nonstop chatterbox, Richard Greene who would become British TV's Robin Hood a decade or more later, the ever slithering Albert Lieven flashing a swastika-bearing cigarette case, and actor Miles Malleson (better known as as the dithering, poetic executioner in KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS) this time out of camera as script writer.

The script certainly is not short on innuendo and clever turns as Neagle receives a stuffed yellow canary in the mail that is her intro to a highly restrictive Nazi cell in Halifax, Canada, to where she travels by ship under the guard of Greene.

Wonderful to see Canadian-British cooperation to down the Nazi cell, pity that Canadian landscapes do not feature more.

Needless to say, you need to suspend your disbelief here and there but YELLOW CANARY is great fun to watch if you are not one of those viewers who expect directors, screenwriters and cameramen in 1943 to be aware of CGI, cinema industry changes and all the rest of it that causes some current viewers to brand movies like this one as "dated."

I enjoyed it thoroughly and hope to have the opportunity to rewatch it in the not too distant future. 7/10.