Geraldine Fitzgerald recruits two strangers -- Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet -- from the foggy streets of Victorian London and asks them to her flat. She asks them to chip in for a sweepstakes ticket and sign a document that they are equal contributors and none will sell his third of the payoff to anyone else. Maybe I should explain because this confused me. The sweepstakes isn't a random drawing of a number. It's horse race. The favorite horse is announced just before the race, so suddenly anyone who happens to own a ticket with the name of the favorite on it -- in this case "Corn Cracker" -- finds himself with a bird in the hand. He can sell his ticket (or his share in the ticket) to someone else at a higher price than what he paid. But the document with three signatures forbids this. So we already know this is a set up for later conflict.
As a matter of fact, the three signators are all up to illegal or unethical doings. Geraldine Fitzgerald is a wife whose impulsiveness has alienated her husband, a Member of Parliament who is now in love and in bed with a Canadian woman. A scandal would be calamitous to his career. She squeals on him out of spite.
The bibulous Peter Lorre has been involved in a stick up in which a bobby was killed by his partner. He barely escapes hanging.
Greenstreet, a Mount Everest of blubber, has been embezzling funds from the trust fund of one of his agreeable but ditzy elderly female clients. When she insists on an imediate audit just before the race, Greenstreet becomes desperate and needs to sell his share of the ticket in order to make up the loss. He rushes to Fitzgerald's flat where he finds her and Lorre. Conflict ensues.
All the way through, I wondered how the screenwriter, John Huston, was going to pull these three disparate narrative threads together because, after that first adventitious meeting, they never meet again until the resolution.
Well, he does a pretty good job, and the director, Jean Negulesco, doesn't let the script down. Both the writer and director add something to what otherwise might have been a pedestrian story of suspense and murder and intrigue. The sets help too. Who can not be enthralled by the foggy streets of London where each shadow might hide a mysterious figure -- perhaps with a RAZOR? I kind of like it, especially the mountainous Sydney Greenstreet with his quivering lips and darting eyes. Great heavy.
As a matter of fact, the three signators are all up to illegal or unethical doings. Geraldine Fitzgerald is a wife whose impulsiveness has alienated her husband, a Member of Parliament who is now in love and in bed with a Canadian woman. A scandal would be calamitous to his career. She squeals on him out of spite.
The bibulous Peter Lorre has been involved in a stick up in which a bobby was killed by his partner. He barely escapes hanging.
Greenstreet, a Mount Everest of blubber, has been embezzling funds from the trust fund of one of his agreeable but ditzy elderly female clients. When she insists on an imediate audit just before the race, Greenstreet becomes desperate and needs to sell his share of the ticket in order to make up the loss. He rushes to Fitzgerald's flat where he finds her and Lorre. Conflict ensues.
All the way through, I wondered how the screenwriter, John Huston, was going to pull these three disparate narrative threads together because, after that first adventitious meeting, they never meet again until the resolution.
Well, he does a pretty good job, and the director, Jean Negulesco, doesn't let the script down. Both the writer and director add something to what otherwise might have been a pedestrian story of suspense and murder and intrigue. The sets help too. Who can not be enthralled by the foggy streets of London where each shadow might hide a mysterious figure -- perhaps with a RAZOR? I kind of like it, especially the mountainous Sydney Greenstreet with his quivering lips and darting eyes. Great heavy.