The detective story is such a concrete, material genre - a physical crime occurs, and a detective solves it by interpreting physical clues. And yet, in another way, the genre is at a remove from the physical - corpses can't speak; the stolen item is an absence, the detective works in the abstract, trying to retrieve that elusive concept, time, the past; concrete clues become abstract, made to fit a theoretical pattern; much evidence depends on witness and testimony - such 'facts' are so tainted with subjectivity, unreliability, self-interest, faulty memory, even falsehood, that the material floats away in a haze of dubious suspicion and speculation. It is this tension in the genre between the material and the abstract that makes 'An Inspector Calls' so compelling.
Priestley's thesis is patently artificial - five members of a prosperous family (well four, and a future in-law) are all supposed to be linked to the suicide of a working-class woman - but for once theatrical contrivance is justified. Although the film works well enough as a mystery, it is Inspector Poole's role in it that is its motor. Even before the supernatural ending, we realise that we are not dealing with a prosaic officer of the law. The dramatic cuts (with thunderous music) to Poole, the otherworldly lighting that sets him apart from those he interrogates, giving him an almost demonic look, or that of a grim Calvinist prophet, replete with vicar's dress, his omnipotent power and knowledge, whether ordering the family around their own home, judging them, disrupting routine and dangerous assumptions, or the access he has to the life of the dead girl, the way he can connect a woman of various pseudonyms, jobs, lives to one family; his repeated, ungainsayable power to extract the truth, all suggest a supernatural figure, an avenging angel, perhaps, or an embodiment of conscience - after all, the family become aware of their guilt before the crime happens, and, importantly, it is a collective guilt, not just limited to this family, but the ruling classes of England as a whole, two years before blundering into a stupid war, where millions of Eva Smith's class will be slaughtered, while Birling and his like sip sherry and gloat over munitions factories.
Most English mystery stories take place in one setting, but are rarely as claustrophobic as this. The only respite are the flashbacks, but these are mere images of what people are saying, and hence, unsubstantial, abstract. The more the film goes on, the more the home becomes a kind of figure for the mind, propped up by illusions, evasions, prejudices, nagged away at by inexorable conscience.
But this metaphysical dimension co-exists with a canny understanding of class. The film opens as pure Galsworthy, with the vulgar, pretentious middle-class business magnate marrying his finishing school-educated daughter to an aristocrat who is presumably impoverished. The film opens with the hope of a union, but the cracks in this happy cross-class alliance are already clear, the dissipation of the son and heir, the mysterious Victorian double-life of the fiance, showing that sexuality will always undermine the self-confidence of governing elites. The exploitation of the working class is, punningly, linked to sex also, the loss of position and status due to vanity and caprice resulting in a vulnerability to exploitation.
Admittedly, Priestley's ideas are simplistic and rarely subtle, but the concentration on pure plot means less room for the usual execrable attempts at character and atmosphere. Hamilton's direction is serviceable, a little self-mocking; the cast are believable caricatures, but there is still only one real reason to watch 'An Inspector Calls' today, and that is the immortal Alistair Sim, cinema's greatest comedian bar none, bringing a frightening, yet amused and perverse irony to a difficult role to pull off. Genius.
Priestley's thesis is patently artificial - five members of a prosperous family (well four, and a future in-law) are all supposed to be linked to the suicide of a working-class woman - but for once theatrical contrivance is justified. Although the film works well enough as a mystery, it is Inspector Poole's role in it that is its motor. Even before the supernatural ending, we realise that we are not dealing with a prosaic officer of the law. The dramatic cuts (with thunderous music) to Poole, the otherworldly lighting that sets him apart from those he interrogates, giving him an almost demonic look, or that of a grim Calvinist prophet, replete with vicar's dress, his omnipotent power and knowledge, whether ordering the family around their own home, judging them, disrupting routine and dangerous assumptions, or the access he has to the life of the dead girl, the way he can connect a woman of various pseudonyms, jobs, lives to one family; his repeated, ungainsayable power to extract the truth, all suggest a supernatural figure, an avenging angel, perhaps, or an embodiment of conscience - after all, the family become aware of their guilt before the crime happens, and, importantly, it is a collective guilt, not just limited to this family, but the ruling classes of England as a whole, two years before blundering into a stupid war, where millions of Eva Smith's class will be slaughtered, while Birling and his like sip sherry and gloat over munitions factories.
Most English mystery stories take place in one setting, but are rarely as claustrophobic as this. The only respite are the flashbacks, but these are mere images of what people are saying, and hence, unsubstantial, abstract. The more the film goes on, the more the home becomes a kind of figure for the mind, propped up by illusions, evasions, prejudices, nagged away at by inexorable conscience.
But this metaphysical dimension co-exists with a canny understanding of class. The film opens as pure Galsworthy, with the vulgar, pretentious middle-class business magnate marrying his finishing school-educated daughter to an aristocrat who is presumably impoverished. The film opens with the hope of a union, but the cracks in this happy cross-class alliance are already clear, the dissipation of the son and heir, the mysterious Victorian double-life of the fiance, showing that sexuality will always undermine the self-confidence of governing elites. The exploitation of the working class is, punningly, linked to sex also, the loss of position and status due to vanity and caprice resulting in a vulnerability to exploitation.
Admittedly, Priestley's ideas are simplistic and rarely subtle, but the concentration on pure plot means less room for the usual execrable attempts at character and atmosphere. Hamilton's direction is serviceable, a little self-mocking; the cast are believable caricatures, but there is still only one real reason to watch 'An Inspector Calls' today, and that is the immortal Alistair Sim, cinema's greatest comedian bar none, bringing a frightening, yet amused and perverse irony to a difficult role to pull off. Genius.