The Glass Cage

Another film watched for the "House of Hammer" podcast, which I am still around six months behind the release dates with. This is a strange film, both in terms of setting but also, it's the rare film that I want to be longer, so something more could happen.

Pel Pelham (John Ireland) is asked by his friend Tony Lewis (Sid James) to talk to a girl that he's been having an affair with and is now who is threatening blackmail. By co-incidence the woman, Rena (Tonia Bern) lives above Pelham's friend Sapolio (Eric Pohlmann) with whom, Pelham is planning to rerun his "starvation act", a carnival turn where Sapolio is locked in a small glass windowed apartment and is unable to have food for a number of days. Rena agrees to withdraw the blackmail, as it wasn't her idea, however, as Pelham and his friends organise an impromptu party, she is murdered. Suspicion falls on both Pelham and Lewis.

Despite the pretty horrific professional reviews the film has, I didn't think what was there was too bad. Pelham is an interesting character, not quite as personable as you might need to be to run a carnival sideshow, but not so awful as other Hammer leading men we've had recently. The film also has a number of stars I've heard of, Honor Blackman, Sid James, Sydney Tafler - Wikipedia even suggests that Bernard Bresslaw was the 'Cossack', though I wasn't able to confirm that in the viewing. There's also a return for Hammer favourite Eric Pohlmann.

The problem isn't so much with what's there, as what's not there. It's unclear whether the film was cutdown to make the B-Movie hour slot, but there are elements of the story that either happen off screen and are subsequently talked about or just don't happen at all. Some of this is particularly strange as the film doesn't keep the identify of the murderer from us, the audience, so it's not like there is a big reveal at the end.

I quite like the carnival set up, the elements as Pelham gets the show off the ground (though why you'd come to the opening night of this is perhaps up for some debate) I liked the performances and the version available of Youtube actually looks and sounds pretty good. It's just missing the central elements to make this into a thriller I actually cared about.

An odd crime film with an American star and some players using American accents, no doubt a product of the UK-US film making agreement of 1948. Set in London, the story concerns Pel Pelham (John Ireland), a carny barker with a bright idea for show to pack in crowds. Believe it or not, his idea is to have spectators watch a man starve himself for 70 days, while enclosed in a glass cage (The Glass Cage is an alternate title of the movie). Suspending disbelief, we watch people line up to see this overweight man (Eric Pohlmann) deny himself food. But that's just background for the narrative. The interesting part begins when a young woman who lives upstairs from Pohlmann and his wife is murdered. Those of us watching the film know who the killer is, but it's up to police and Pel's ingenuity to uncover the perpetrator, not only of the woman, but of the Starving Man himself who has also been murdered since he was a possible witness. Featuring Sid James, Sidney Tafler, Honor Blackman as Pel's wife and young actor playing their son whose voice sounds like he's been dubbed by a woman. Preposterous? Yes. But it's rather fun to watch it all play out in 59 minutes.

John Ireland is a carnival barker starting out with a show on his own. It's a "starving man" act, in which Eric Pohlman is put on exhibition; for seventy days, Ireland tells the crowds gathered in front of the big tent, he will not eat. One shilling for adults to see him, six pence for children. It all seems rather foolish and tawdry, but Ireland has a lot of friends, and they get together to throw a party as he moves up in the world. Everyone is having a great time.... until a girl upstairs is murdered. Inspector Liam Redmond asks Ireland to keep his ears open.... but Ireland thinks he knows who did it.

It's an intriguing venue for a murder mystery, and the set-up reminds me of some of Fredric Brown's murder mysteries from the 1950s. However, there's no sense of a separate society among the carney people and the public; the latter may be suckers, but society is viewed as a continuum; Ireland is married to Honor Blackman, and they have a son. Everyone lives in flats, and Redmond thinks it's all perfectly ordinary. It's what you get when you remove the technique from film noir, and place it in an ordinary world: rather disappointing.

John Ireland wanders through this B movie like a penniless child in a nightmare candy store! As a freak-show promoter, he is compelled to bankroll a corpulent carny who, billed as The Starving Man, draws crowds to watch him go foodless for 70 days! Instead of turning on the two like hungry lions, mobs of curious Brits pour continuously forth to goggle the decidedly ungaunt attraction while he shaves, sleeps, and so on. Somehow, two murders occur in the midst of the mess, and so the rub. One has to wonder if the whole production (the movie, not the sideshow) is a joke on the audience, since the film is peppered with crude carnality symbolism and (for the fifties) sly sexual innuendo and double entendre. If one has a taste for oh-so-awful flicks and fool-the-rubes humor, this might be worth a peek.

It would be foolish to expect much from a Hammer low-budget, B-programmer and all one one can really say about this one is that it could have been far better.

A previous reviewer has suggested that a certain Joseph Losey may perhaps have contributed to the direction and if that is the case, credited director Montgomery Tully cannot shoulder all of the blame. Cinematographer William Harvey has provided oodles of high contrast lighting to impart the 'Noirish' look whilst Leonard Salzedo's score is suitably carnivalesque.

The customary Hollywood import here is John Ireland, whose glum persona one either takes to or one doesn't whilst quintessentially English Honor Blackman as his highly unlikely wife is obliged to adopt an American accent of sorts. Excellent support from Sid James as a bookie, Sydney Tafler as a blackmailer and Geoffrey Keen for once on the other side of the law whilst an assortment of colourful fairground characters make a lot of noise, notably Eric Pohlmann whose macabre 'starving man' act is one that hordes of gullible irks are prepared to part with money to see. The climax is ludicrous but the film had to end somehow.

Bound to have its devotees, this one is really for Hammer completists.