In the heyday of mystery writing, we had Sayers, Christie, Chesterton and a dozen others who were artists of narrative curves. The game was to create a world, but us in it and only later let us know how wrong we were.
And then we had formula pulp writers, many of whom had good formulas. And then we had Edgar Wallace who would dictate a story straight through and never edit. These things were not crafted and were messy in narrative discovery. But they sold, and here is one of the biggest sellers.
This movie is not something where you can guess what is going on, and in the last few moments when it is all 'explained' the shock is not in what happened, but the shamelessness of the construction.
See, there was an injustice committed and a fair, innocent daughter.
There's the old hack of the rich guy, lost will and scheming relatives.
There's a serial kidnapping scheme with a massive gang that preys on schoolgirls, suitably attractive and silly.
And there is a revenge killer in a hood. The only cinematic element is his whip that instantly asphixiates.
What do these have to do with each other? Nothing, except they are mixed into scenes helter skelter.
And then we had formula pulp writers, many of whom had good formulas. And then we had Edgar Wallace who would dictate a story straight through and never edit. These things were not crafted and were messy in narrative discovery. But they sold, and here is one of the biggest sellers.
This movie is not something where you can guess what is going on, and in the last few moments when it is all 'explained' the shock is not in what happened, but the shamelessness of the construction.
See, there was an injustice committed and a fair, innocent daughter.
There's the old hack of the rich guy, lost will and scheming relatives.
There's a serial kidnapping scheme with a massive gang that preys on schoolgirls, suitably attractive and silly.
And there is a revenge killer in a hood. The only cinematic element is his whip that instantly asphixiates.
What do these have to do with each other? Nothing, except they are mixed into scenes helter skelter.