Color Me Frustrated
This weekend's review: Green for Danger.
As someone who has a fondness for eye-catching noir titles, Green For Danger was right up my alley from the word go. I had no idea what the title meant, but given both the title and the setting (a makeshift hospital in Britain during WWII), I was sure it would be unique. And while there’s truth to that…the title was probably the best executed thing about the movie.
To be fair, the story also has some promise. After a bomb injures the local postman (Moore Marriott), a medical team performs a routine operation on him to fix his injuries, only for the patient to die on the operating table. Everyone’s shaken up, but figures it was just an unfortunate accident…until the head nurse of the operation, Sister Bates (Judy Campbell) declares that it was actually murder, and she has proof. Shortly afterwards, Bates is also found dead, which leaves the other five as suspects. Thus, Inspector Cockrill (Alastair Sim) arrives on the scene and starts to grill those who remain; chief surgeon Eden (Leo Genn), anesthesiologist Barnes (Trevor Howard), and support nurses Sanson, Linley, and Woods (Rosamund John, Sally Gray, and Megs Jenkins). Besides the obvious question of “who did it?”, the other question that concerns everyone is “Will the killer strike again?”
This is one of those movies where the scales keep balancing out-everything done right is countered by something going wrong. The setup establishing the characters and their motives for killing the postman is decent…but said characterizations and motivations are pure melodrama. There are some decent moments of suspense, but then there are other moments that feel like padding. The explanation for the murder (which ties in to the title) is fairly clever, but the movie tips its hand about the meaning long before the actual reveal, meaning we have to wait for the characters to catch up. And while Sim turns in a decent performance, Inspector Cockrill is overall unpleasant to watch, since he’s the worst combination of arrogant and condescending. Combined with the long stretches where we focus on the personal lives of the doctors, I found it hard to stay invested. It happened in brief bursts, but just couldn’t be sustained.
In the end, I can’t recommend this movie. There’s nothing actively wrong with it, but it’s an inconsistent viewing experience, where you’ll be intrigued one minute then bored and irritated the next. This is one story that should have been given a proper checkup.
As someone who has a fondness for eye-catching noir titles, Green For Danger was right up my alley from the word go. I had no idea what the title meant, but given both the title and the setting (a makeshift hospital in Britain during WWII), I was sure it would be unique. And while there’s truth to that…the title was probably the best executed thing about the movie.
To be fair, the story also has some promise. After a bomb injures the local postman (Moore Marriott), a medical team performs a routine operation on him to fix his injuries, only for the patient to die on the operating table. Everyone’s shaken up, but figures it was just an unfortunate accident…until the head nurse of the operation, Sister Bates (Judy Campbell) declares that it was actually murder, and she has proof. Shortly afterwards, Bates is also found dead, which leaves the other five as suspects. Thus, Inspector Cockrill (Alastair Sim) arrives on the scene and starts to grill those who remain; chief surgeon Eden (Leo Genn), anesthesiologist Barnes (Trevor Howard), and support nurses Sanson, Linley, and Woods (Rosamund John, Sally Gray, and Megs Jenkins). Besides the obvious question of “who did it?”, the other question that concerns everyone is “Will the killer strike again?”
This is one of those movies where the scales keep balancing out-everything done right is countered by something going wrong. The setup establishing the characters and their motives for killing the postman is decent…but said characterizations and motivations are pure melodrama. There are some decent moments of suspense, but then there are other moments that feel like padding. The explanation for the murder (which ties in to the title) is fairly clever, but the movie tips its hand about the meaning long before the actual reveal, meaning we have to wait for the characters to catch up. And while Sim turns in a decent performance, Inspector Cockrill is overall unpleasant to watch, since he’s the worst combination of arrogant and condescending. Combined with the long stretches where we focus on the personal lives of the doctors, I found it hard to stay invested. It happened in brief bursts, but just couldn’t be sustained.
In the end, I can’t recommend this movie. There’s nothing actively wrong with it, but it’s an inconsistent viewing experience, where you’ll be intrigued one minute then bored and irritated the next. This is one story that should have been given a proper checkup.