Very droll, to be sure, with Dennis Price and Joan Greenwood expertly maximizing the effect by their very expert languidness (was ever a human being more like an insinuating, self-sufficient feline than she?); still, though one appreciates the film, the wryness of its narration, how that narration doesn’t quite double its imagery (cf. Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest, especially as analyzed and admired by André Bazin), its commentary about class pretense and the culpability of both sides, its general sure-handed accomplishment, one still doesn’t find it to be especially enjoyable!
(Shall I make clear and confess? That “one” is actually I…)
For all that we over-say it, Alec Guiness really does show his range here: Mr. Henry, echoing his Herbert Pocket, Agatha’s big-laugh-inducing shush in the church, six whole other additional characters; I wish to take note of the other gut-busting moment, which must be the great nose-blow in all of film histoy;
Credit where it’s due: the fact that Price’s conviction is for the murder he didn’t commit is a nice surprise, very expertly prepared, withheld and then delivered; further, that whole configuration, leading to a subsequently ambiguous compromise of an ending, makes you think that this civilized stunt might actually have some thematic substance and moral heft;
Maybe one should try watching this one again…