kfo9494 A great British who-done-it mystery that was charming and entertaining. A great murder mystery for the entire family with historic value woven right into the script.Alastair Sims plays Inspector Cockrill from Scotland Yard called to a hospital after a set of murders are committed. It appears that someone in the surgical ward of the hospital is killing people and the Inspector is called out to find who and why the kills are happening.Inspector Cockrill finds more than he bargained when he deals with the lives of the hospital personnel. Each person has some emotion they want hidden from the rest of the public thus making the mystery more interesting.This movie is a great mystery film. It will keep you on the edge of your seat the entire time. And the entire cast really performs beautifully as each character shows the human side of their emotion.Even with the ending kind of crowded- the film deliveries with suspense and thrills for all viewers. There is a lot of history in this film. From hospital procedures to war time fears, this movie is a gem to watch. A good who-done-it flick.

secondtake Green for Danger (1946)With such a tightly interwoven plot and great cast, directed with precision, and filmed in a German Expressionist style to beat the band, it's amazing this doesn't have a larger reputation. It does start a little ambiguously, with some fast talking, but even here, with V1 rockets dropping and high stakes life and death operating room dramas (and love affairs) in the works, it's pretty amazing stuff.Alastair Sims is the narrator, and he arrives in person after the first third, changing the tenor of the movie, and adding exactly the right humor and cleverness to the soap opera dramatics of the rest of the nurses and doctors in this British enclave. We are told in the first minutes that three murders will happen, and then, one by one, they do. But we never anticipate exactly who or how, and as a classic British whodunit, this is among the best.Director Sidney Gilliat is better known (if known is the word at all here in America) as a producer (with Frank Launder) and a writer (including for several famous films directed by other directors like Alfred Hitchcock). But his feel for the movies, and for directing at the highest level, is shown here handily, especially in his keeping the logic of the complicated plot clear even as it swirls visually, and with lots of actors each with important roles. It's quite a treat to watch, and you could probably watch it twice in a row and enjoy it more the second time.Of course, what most mysteries have against them as great literature, or great movies, is their built in avoidance of depth of feeling, or of meaning. But not everything is Shakespeare, and as riveting, moving entertainment, it's hard to get any better.

Polaris_DiB I only have a very brief review for this one, as most of the details are in the mystery and the plot and most of those details are spoilers. This is a rich and whimsical British mystery, the type popular with fans of Agatha Christie, for instance. It's set during the German blitz of Great Britain during World War II, and Gilliat backdrops the rather personal mystery held within an insular community with the Pavlovian terror of the bombings and the issue of world affairs in the heart of many a character's motivations. Otherwise, the motive behind the movie is kind of a let down, but don't let that stop you from enjoying the fun behind "whodunnit". The movie really gets started when Alastair Sim arrives as the quirky, wry investigator. He's a scene-stealer in every way, surrounded as he his by the usual in characters with strong personalities too involved in their own ways to be more than just a little truthful.--PolarisDiB

bkoganbing Green For Danger is about a pair of murders that take place in a British hospital in post World War II Great Britain. One was a patient that died on the operating table, the other is of one of the attending nurses who says that she has evidence that the patient's death was indeed foul play. Unfortunately she's stabbed to death before revealing her evidence.Scotland Yard sends Inspector Alastair Sim to investigate and he's got a closed set of operating suspects that include hospital staff, Sally Gray, Trevor Howard, Leo Genn, and Rosamund John. What could it all be about?As is usual the motive is kind of far out, but as Sim says we're not dealing with a normal functioning mind here. Sim is the real show in Green For Danger, he's a British version of Lieutenant Columbo thirty years ahead of his time. He's constantly getting under foot and a real annoyance to the hospital staff. But he has a knack for ferreting out information.Of course he does in the end find out the who and the why, but Sim does manage to fumble the arrest of his perpetrator in an unusual way. But as he says in the end it wasn't his best day on the job.For those who like the droll characters portrayed by Alastair Sim on the screen, Green For Danger is a must for you.