Review of The List of Adrian Messenger

This film has the trappings of Doyle but the aura of Christie,all wrapped up in a blanket of Hustonian braggadacio. One of the medium's most idiosyncratic directors and hammiest actors(in a good way),Mr Huston apparently lost interest in many of his projects almost as soon as they started to bear fruit. This is not detectable on screen during "The List of Adrian Messenger" except in the denouement involving his "hidden stars" which proceeds with a haste that is almost rude. Whether or not it was his idea in the first place I don't know,but clearly he was anxious to get it over with before it could be revealed as a Maguffin to rival any of Hitchcock's. The story is intriguing despite Mr Scott's English accent which may have ben a template for Mr van Dyke's efforts a little later that year. Sitting in the three and nines in the "Odeon" in Brighton's West St, I pencilled in my diary the parts I thought were being played by the Big Stars. The first name I wrote was Kirk Douglas playing George C.Scott's role. In my defence there did seem to be a close similarity. Apart from Mr Lancaster who clearly was not playing the Hunt Follower,the others were easy. Mr Scott - later to play Sherlock Holme - ,was cool and dogged,trying hard to take the rather convoluted plot seriously. The icily beautiful Miss D.Wynter was perfectly cast,the locations well - chosen and the whole thing crisply shot in startling black and white. The English aristos are everything you might expect a man who owned Estates in Ireland to sincerely believe. None of this stops "The List" from being an atypical Huston film for that stage of his career. He lifts his foot from the testosterone pedal despite a predominantly male cast and lets his cinematographer's imagination predominate. The Hunt scenes - regardless of your taste or otherwise for Foxhunting,are bravura film - making. Best seen I'm afraid,on the big screen where the interiors and exteriors may distract you from the unlikeliness of it all. Overall great fun and a worthy example of a Film Craftsman's oeuvre.