So so (or, as TCM's Alicia Malone accurately describes it, "minor") Alec Guinness comedy. A few good moments, like the disastrous seaside holiday where Guinness' ethically challenged man on the make realizes he's hooked up with an equally dodgy gold digger (a way too over the top Glynis Johns) but, for the most part, pleasant if too tepid stuff. Scenarist Eric Ambler sticks too close to Arnold Bennett's novel and, thus, creates, in my opinion, the wrong comic, love triangle. It should have been Machin, Miss Earp and the sexy, saucy Countess (a wonderful Valerie Hobson delivering the film's best performance, by far) rather than Machin/Miss Earp and the very forgettable Emma, played forgettably by Petulia Clark. And the film's second half, dealing with Machin's not very interesting get rich quick schemes and his even duller political rise, majorly drags. As for Guinness, he's a little too comfortable in his role of cheeky charmer, as if he's done it many times before and has nothing new to offer. I wouldn't say he phones it in. Guinness is too great an actor for that pejorative term ever to apply. But, as Machin might say, he tends to rest on his assets. C plus.
Review of The Promoter
