The Green Finger (1946) User Reviews

A Good Mystery Yarn

[boblipton · 6/10 · 27 November 2019]

Anthony Hulme is Paul Temple, a mystery writer and occasional consultant for the police. When one of them shows up for help with a string of smash-and-grab jewelry robberies, he winds up dead, in an apparent suicide. Later, when newspaperwoman Joy Shelton shows up for an interview, she turns out to be the dead man's sister. They begin to cooperate on the case.

It's an inexpensively produced movie version of the BBC show that ran for about three decades, and a fair mystery; not only does the audience get clues as soon as the hero, sometimes they are offered before he gets them; this adds a tension to the proceedings, as the audience -- I anyway -- began to wonder if he would ever catch the bad guy.

The movie was produced by Butcher's Film Service at their Nettleton studio. The firm was founded by William Butcher, a Blackheath chemist in the first decade of the 20th century, in an era when they did film developing and often had a sideline in equipment. They were distributing films by 1909, mostly to northern England. Butcher's was never a classy firm; their typical directors, by the 1940s, included Maclean Rogers and Francis Searle, and their biggest stars were Arthur Lucan as Old Mother Riley, and Frank Randle. However, they also distributed movies by Cecil Hepworth, Maurice Elvey, and Walter Forde. They survived as a production company well into the 1960s, and were still distributing movies in the 1980s. That's quite a length of time in the turbulent industry.

"A bird can't fly with one wing"

[hwg1957-102-265704 · 6/10 · 8 February 2020]

Through the apparent suicide of a detective friend the crime writer Paul Temple is drawn into an investigation concerning diamond robberies in the Midlands, This centres mainly around inns called 'The Green Finger and 'The First Penguin'. He also meets for the first time the reporter Steve Trent who would come to play a big part in his life. With his constant ejaculation of "By Timothy!" Temple sorts out the mystery eventually.

This is the first ever Paul Temple film based on the popular radio character but it is mainly a radio play with pictures. Not uninteresting but not that exciting. It's mostly talk with a bit of action. Anthony Hulme as Temple and Joy Shelton as Steve are passable. More interesting is Beatrice Varley as Miss Marchment but who is sadly not on screen enough.

The series would improve when John Bentley took over the Paul Temple role.

Send for Paul Temple review

[JoeytheBrit · 5/10 · 14 May 2020]

The first of four Paul Temple pictures made by the cut-price Butcher Empire Studios is full of plot twists and red herrings, but loses momentum around the halfway mark. Anthony Hulme makes a decent enough Temple, but would be replaced by John Bentley for the remainder of the series.

The Green Finger and The First Penguin

[robert-temple-1 · 18 August 2011]

This is the first of the four feature films made between 1946 and 1952 featuring the lead character of Paul Temple, detective, based upon the stories and radio scripts of Frances Durbridge. In this film, Anthony Hulme plays Temple, but in the other three, Temple was played by John Bentley. This is a very good one. Of the four films, only three have been issued on video or DVD. The first and the last are both better than CALLING PAUL TEMPLE (1948, see my review), which is not as good, although it is notable for Dinah Sheridan playing 'Steve', one of her most renowned roles later on being the mother in THE RAILWAY CHILDREN (1970, see my review). (Dinah Sheridan's real name was Dinah Ginsburg, and her father was a Russian.) The story of this film deals with a ruthless gang of jewel thieves who frequently murder people when they carry out their robberies in England. It is realized that they follow a similar pattern to that of an earlier jewel thief gang in South Africa some years before, and that they must be led by the same man, whose true identity is not known, but who goes by the name of the Knave of Diamonds. One night watchman just before dying manages to say something about 'the green finger', which makes no sense to anyone, though its meaning later becomes very clear. There is a mysterious little woman called Miss Marchmont, played with verve by the character actress Beatrice Varley, whose true identity also turns out to be a surprise in the story. There is another mysterious name, 'the first penguin', which is important, but what or who is meant by it? The film is entertaining for those who find a 1940s detective film interesting.

More mystery novel then mystery film this is a good little thriller

[dbborroughs · 6/10 · 28 December 2009]

First of an on again off again series from England based upon a long running radio mystery series. Temple is a mystery writer who sometimes get roped into helping Scotland Yard. In this film a series of deadly snatch and grab robberies are occurring across the nation. When a Scotland yard detective and friend of Paul's comes to see him, he is found a short time later apparently having committed suicide. This puts Temple on the case and also hooks him up with the woman who will eventually become his wife, the dead man's sister. Long rambling story feels more like a dense mystery novel rather than a typical mystery film. I'm not sure if all of the convulsions and twists and turns are really necessary since bits of the plot are clear to anyone looking in from the outset (I knew who the ultimate bad guy was the minute he was introduced). While the film feels meaty it also feel much longer than its 87 minutes I liked it but at the same time I kind of wished it would have moved along a little faster. reservations aside its worth taking a look at if you're a fan of the series or of 1940's mysteries.

Send for Paul Temple

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 10 February 2023]

Looking at the style of this production, you wouldn't really have to guess it was based on characters originally created for the wireless. The production is very precise, static almost as we witness the eponymous amateur sleuth (Anthony Hulme) try to get to the bottom of some diamond thievery and of the mysterious death of a police constable working on these heists. Along the way he enlists the help of the dead man's girlfriend - a journalist who uses the moniker "Steve" (Joy Shelton) and pretty soon they are embroiled in a clever and dangerous plot hiding in plain sight. What does make this work is the writing - the story requires us to engage our own grey cells a bit if we are to get any satisfaction from the otherwise rather pedestrian presentation. We are given some clues, some red herrings and the actors sort of act as guides as we try to solve the mystery for ourselves. I reckon this would have worked just as well on the radio, but on film it is an enjoyable enough mystery that over-stretches a bit long - at eighty minutes - but is still worth a watch.

Routine detective investigation, the first in a four-film series

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 19 October 2015]

The first of four film adaptations concerning the mild-mannered gentleman detective, Paul Temple. Not to be confused with Simon Templar, of course; Temple is a far lesser creation, who doesn't seem to do a great deal apart from plod his way around crime scenes and drink a lot. He started out on the radio before appearing in this four-film series.

The plot of this one charts a gang of jewel thieves who ruthlessly murder anybody with a chance to expose them. There are a couple of neat set-pieces here, like an apparent suicide in a pub which turns out to be a murder, but as a whole it's oddly unexciting. When the main characters fail to get worked up about sudden death and murder right under their very noses (a character is even bumped off in the courthouse!) the viewer is unable to either.

SEND FOR PAUL TEMPLE just about gets by with some mild atmosphere and some not-bad performances, although the entire cast was unknown to me. But it really pales in comparison to contemporary cinema, in particularly the film noir genre which was raging across the pond, which is no surprise given the low budget and rather limited nature of the film.

Send for Paul Temple

[Prismark10 · 3/10 · 29 November 2019]

There is a good story here but it makes for such an unexciting and times clunky old fashioned film.

Chief Inspector Gerald Harvey visits mystery novelist Paul Temple (Anthony Hulme) at his country mansion. He wants Temple's help over a spate of jewellery robberies. The gang are not afraid to kill. At the nearby local pub where Temple drops him off, Harvey supposedly shoots himself suddenly. The landlord tells Temple it is suicide and this is confirmed by the local doctor. Temple has doubts.

Temple hooks up with journalist Steve, it was her brother that was killed. The gang carried out similar style of robberies in South Africa. It seems the same gang has come over to Britain.

Then there is the meek Amelia Marchment who is studying the history of English inns who seems to know something about the gang as well.

Based on the Francis Durbridge radio thriller. There is a kernel of a decent mystery here with a criminal mastermind behind it all and lots of double crossings. However the film is too low budget, Hulme is too plain and the film production company just cannot realise this as an effective thriller.

A. touch of the Edgar Wallace

[malcolmgsw · 5/10 · 29 November 2015]

Given that Edgar Wallace wrote over 200 books it would be difficult to write a film utilising a gang without borrowing heavily from Wallace.So we start with a gang who are committing robberies in the Midlands and the police seem incapable of catching the criminals.So obviously it is a case for Paul Temple and a woman crime reporter.Some of the gang get caught by the police or get cold feet.Just when they are about to spill the beans they are killed by one means or another.As is usual the head of the gang is someone that we should have thought of in the first place.There is an action packed climax when we finally find out the identity of the gang leader.Must have been impressive on the radio.

Jewel thieves advancing to murder plots

[clanciai · 8/10 · 27 January 2023]

Paul Temple was the great radio detective of the 40s and 50s, immensely popular all round the world, where people everywhere sat glued to their radios to listen to the next chapter of some dreadfully exciting mystery of murders and deceptions and atrocious robberies demanding the extraordinary help of Paul Temple to get things sorted out. All the necessary ingredients are found here to make up a real Paul Temple affair, the strange unexplainable murders, the woman in distress, the ruthless killers, masked as proper citizens, and a tremendously intricate mystery plot with a complicated background of a history abroad, almost like a Sherlock Holmes elaborate novel. The style of Francis Durbridge is smooth and stylish, he has a certain elegance of writing and concocting his plots which you don't find neither in Edgar Wallace, Leslie Charters, Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming or any of the others, and his plots are always a challenge to your intelligence - Paul Temple is smarter and cooler than you would ever be, and he always solves his case. The actors here are no aces, there is no cinematography, the direction is efficient but gives no room for any depth of character or psychology, the absence of any Hitchcock quality is blatant, so the whole film depends entirely on the script. Fortunately this is sufficient, and his mysteries would deserve some revival, especially today when the criminal genre is completely drowned in atrocious superficiality of only violence and sex.

Routine British detective movie.

[Mozjoukine · 5 May 2008]

The attempt to turn radio's Paul Temple into a movie series had limited success.

This film is uneven and all the information is carried in its radio writer dialog. The cast are undistinguished but production values get by. They even have a go at a staged in the studio Ram Raid, which is a whole lot better than their toy car bridge crash. Pacing is surprisingly quite lively.

The characters can be divided into regulars, including an unfunny "yellow face" comic butler, and suspects. The stamp of the pre-war Edgar Wallace thrillers is firmly upon it all, without the film reaching even their modest levels of interest.

With its eye firmly on the Empire quota, it's so stodgily British as to numb an audience into wondering what the Big Picture in the program will be like. Our suit and tie wearing, BBC accented hero was never going to be a threat to Charly Chan and Michael Shayne.