Its World War II and those Nazi night raids are driving the British country folk balmy. When a postman is injured and rushed into surgery, he looks suspiciously at one of the doctors and one of the nurses taking on his case whom he recognizes. The next thing you know, he's gone onto that great post office in the sky and the entire staff is under suspicion for deliberately causing his death. One of the nurses (Judy Campbell) is extremely jealous of colleague Rosamund John and doctor Leo Genn (whom she discovers kissing), and at a hospital function, she denounces the postman's killer without mentioning a name, only hinting about hidden evidence that will unleash their identity. She too ends up dead, leading to a showdown with the five suspects and Inspector Cockrill (Alastair Sim), a know-it-all detective who is in for a few surprises of his own. The Inspector is the film's narrator and reveals enough clues to get the intrigue started.Tension builds at the party during a dance to "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" which later becomes as dramatic a theme music as Alfred Hitchcock used with "The Merry Widow Waltz" in "Shadow of a Doubt" and "The Strawberry Blonde" in "Strangers on a Train". The film can be rather slow in spots, but as the surprises explode, the film just gets more and more amusing. It is astonishing to note that the film seems technically advanced beyond its release year as some British films tended to seem compared to the studio controlled product in Hollywood. Director Sidney Gilliat doesn't give us a slower paced narrative for no reason; Every detail is explored. The film's photography is outstanding. Other than Trevor Howard, Alastair Sim and Leo Genn, the cast may not be familiar to a lot of American viewers, but everybody is fine and each of them have great moments to shine. Stick with the film and you'll be greatly amused by the twists and turns in the plot that you don't see coming. Sim, best known to American audiences for perhaps the most popular version of "A Christmas Carol", plays a role I thought might be a continuing character in other films, but I was mistaken. He seemed very comfortable in the part for this to have been a regular role for him. He has a great final surprise and his response to it is ingenious.

Green for Danger (1946)With such a tightly interwoven plot and great cast, directed with precision, and filmed in a German Expressionist style to beat the band, it's amazing this doesn't have a larger reputation. It does start a little ambiguously, with some fast talking, but even here, with V1 rockets dropping and high stakes life and death operating room dramas (and love affairs) in the works, it's pretty amazing stuff.Alastair Sims is the narrator, and he arrives in person after the first third, changing the tenor of the movie, and adding exactly the right humor and cleverness to the soap opera dramatics of the rest of the nurses and doctors in this British enclave. We are told in the first minutes that three murders will happen, and then, one by one, they do. But we never anticipate exactly who or how, and as a classic British whodunit, this is among the best.Director Sidney Gilliat is better known (if known is the word at all here in America) as a producer (with Frank Launder) and a writer (including for several famous films directed by other directors like Alfred Hitchcock). But his feel for the movies, and for directing at the highest level, is shown here handily, especially in his keeping the logic of the complicated plot clear even as it swirls visually, and with lots of actors each with important roles. It's quite a treat to watch, and you could probably watch it twice in a row and enjoy it more the second time.Of course, what most mysteries have against them as great literature, or great movies, is their built in avoidance of depth of feeling, or of meaning. But not everything is Shakespeare, and as riveting, moving entertainment, it's hard to get any better.

The original audience must have been reasonably satisfied with this back in 1946 if only for the cast, who were mostly well known and the equivalent of flesh-and-blood comfort food. Alistair Sim, Rosamund John,Sally Gray, Megs Jenkins, Trevor Howard, Leo Genn, Judy Campbell just for openers. Depending on your point of view and cynicism in your make up Sydney Gilliat's direction is either stylish or manipulative; for example he introduces what will turn out to be the five suspects when they are gowned and masked in the operating theatre; with only their eyes visible the camera pans from one to the other as, for no discernible reason, they lay 'meaningful' looks on each other. This is textbook stuff from the 'Meaningless Meaningful Looks' section of How To Direct A Movie. It may well be that in 1944 hospitals were designed with Operating Theatres isolated from the main building so that victim number 2 is obliged to walk through tree-studded grounds to get to it but did she have to do it on the cliché'd 'dark and stormy night' allowing Gilliat to have a ball with howling wind and ominous shadows. Why not a balmy summer's eve, after all she's still going to wind up on the menu, and was it really necessary for the killer to be gowned and masked at a time when the theatre was locked for the night. If these things don't bother you then you'll enjoy this one as much as the majority of posters, and why not, it IS enjoyable AND entertaining in its modest way and probably just the thing after six years of war.

Green For Danger is about a pair of murders that take place in a British hospital in post World War II Great Britain. One was a patient that died on the operating table, the other is of one of the attending nurses who says that she has evidence that the patient's death was indeed foul play. Unfortunately she's stabbed to death before revealing her evidence.Scotland Yard sends Inspector Alastair Sim to investigate and he's got a closed set of operating suspects that include hospital staff, Sally Gray, Trevor Howard, Leo Genn, and Rosamund John. What could it all be about?As is usual the motive is kind of far out, but as Sim says we're not dealing with a normal functioning mind here. Sim is the real show in Green For Danger, he's a British version of Lieutenant Columbo thirty years ahead of his time. He's constantly getting under foot and a real annoyance to the hospital staff. But he has a knack for ferreting out information.Of course he does in the end find out the who and the why, but Sim does manage to fumble the arrest of his perpetrator in an unusual way. But as he says in the end it wasn't his best day on the job.For those who like the droll characters portrayed by Alastair Sim on the screen, Green For Danger is a must for you.