Saturday 27 November 2021

The Spider and the Fly (1949 Robert Hamer)

Wonderful pairing of two deadpan talents, Eric Portman and Guy Rolfe, in that dry Hamer style that made Kind Hearts And Coronets so successful. Add in a Nadia Gray, Paris and a screenplay by Robert Westerby and you have a great film about a detective and a thief and the woman they both love, on the eve of WWI. Good stuff with kids, all characters well cast and directed. John Carol (It Always Rains on Sunday, Pink String and Sealing Wax), George Cole, Harold Lang (The Long Memory), Edward Chapman, Maurice Denham, John Salew, May Hallatt, James Hayter, Arthur Lowe, Philip Stainton.

Lovely music by Georges Auric, shot by Geoffrey Unsworth with Arthur Ibbetson on camera, edited by Seth Holt. An independent Mayflower production. A shame it's not been preserved and digitally remastered.



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