This movie is unusually dull for the initial 40 lackluster minutes until Alistair Sim shows up. When he does, its in a setpiece with a perfectly choreographed bit of slapstick that seems to signal a more imaginative, engaged type of film-making than we've been looking at. But despite a few ravishing moments of camera-work in the movie, still more convention confirms that that was all you get! It's potential dissipates as it plunges through narrower and narrower scales until all that's left is comparing it to other mysteries. It's a bit naff when a b&w movie mentions the color green, pounding you over the head with the title clue. There is craft here, but nothing to transform it into art. A viewer may find intrigue in how a region downstream interprets a Hollywood genre; in this case "noir" filtered through the British investigator tradition.
The quaint rural England milieu and sets will stick in your mind. But the movie never becomes the above average film that it's production design hints at, and one wonders why the extra effort was made. Its regional setting reminded me of P&P's A Canterbury Tale. Perhaps it's the very unflappability of the English that makes this exercise so unengaging. Characters can barely be bothered to feel threatened or excited. The psychology is paper deep.
The quaint rural England milieu and sets will stick in your mind. But the movie never becomes the above average film that it's production design hints at, and one wonders why the extra effort was made. Its regional setting reminded me of P&P's A Canterbury Tale. Perhaps it's the very unflappability of the English that makes this exercise so unengaging. Characters can barely be bothered to feel threatened or excited. The psychology is paper deep.