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February 04, 2005
IN DEFENSE OF CAROL REED
Carol Reed was "a passable journeyman who could sometimes push a story along." So sayeth Christopher Byron in The Sunday Times of London, referred to earlier.
Jan -- After Hitchcock left to work for Selznick, Carol Reed was the best director in England,
and made some excellent movies before he went to war -- "Midshipman Easy," "Kipps,"
"Night Train to
Munich" -- clever entertainment, very watchable and pleasing
today. But in '46 he became a serious man. 
"Odd Man Out," with James
Mason as a dying Irish revolutionary looking for salvation in a heartless nightmare city, is a great
film. Then comes his first collaboration with Greene, "The
Fallen Idol," another bleak tale of disillusion. Sure, he's spellbound by the
dark allure of Welles in "The Third Man"; but no
journeyman could have made those movies, or "Outcast of the Islands," or "The
Man Between" (Mason again). In the '50s, Reed became a lost man himself,
caught between big Hollywood assignments like "Trapeze" -- not a bad flick -- and spiritless hired-hand jobs.
But even "Oliver!," Dickens travesty that
it is, has marvelous moments, and a great Bill Sykes (played by his nephew Oliver Reed). So he
can't be dismissed as a hack. My calling, after all, is to rescue and celebrate the
neglected.
-- Mr. Cheer
Posted by at February 4, 2005 11:05 AM
