Shortly after watching director Carol Reed's very good,but sadly overlooked 1939 Pre-Code film A Girl Must Live,a fellow IMDb'er asked me if I had seen Reed's 1948 Film Noir The Fallen Idol.Despite the title being one of my dad's all time favourite films,and Reed's classic Spiv Film Noir The Third Man,and his high-kicking musical Oliver being two titles that I had greatly enjoyed,I had somehow never gotten around to taking a look at The Fallen Idol,which led to me putting the title at the top of my "must buy" list.A week later:Opening an unexpected parcel that had arrived earlier in the day,I was shocked to discover,that a very kind IMDb'er had sent me a surprise parcel containing not one,but two Carol Reed titles!,which led to me excitingly getting ready to at last witness the fall of an idol.The plot:Finding Phillipe being left on his own in the French embassy,as his parents go on a short holiday,loyal butler Baines decides to cheer Phillipe up,by telling him wild,made up stories,about his adventures in Africa.Looking less than amused at her husbands wild tales,and also not being particularly happy about Phillipe keeping a pet snake hidden,Mrs.Baines tells her husband that he should not be encouraging Phillipe with his crazy stories.Going past one of the main windows in the embassy a few days later,Phillipe notices Baines sitting in a near by café with a woman who is not his wife.Sneking out of the embassy,Phillipe rushes to the café,where he discovers Baines talking to a woman called Julie.With having a deep desire to see Julie, (who he has been having a long- term secret affair with) one last time before she has to go back to France,Baines invites Phillipe to come along with him and his "close friend" Julie to a trip to the zoo.Returning to the embassy later that night, (with Julie quietly creeping in,so as to not raise the attention of Mrs.Baines)Phillipe soon discovers that Baines new "friendship" will soon lead to him witnessing the horrifying sight,of his idol falling from grace.View on the film:Limiting any sense of genuine cheer to the oddly up-beat scored ending in his adaptation of his own short story The Basement Room,co-writer (along with Lesley Storm and William Templeton) Graham Greene gradually builds an unsettling Film Noir world,whose inhabitants turn out to be much different than they originally appeared.Keeping the plot based from a child's point of view,the writer's show Phillipe's "innocent" outlook on the adults to be one that is rotted away by the adults,with Philipe discovering,that instead of joy and optimism,the fractured face of the adults hide the dark shadows of deceit,dissolution,mistrust,and possibly,even murder.Fully displaying the low-lit world that Phillipe's embassy is enclosed in,director Carol Reed and cinematography Georges Perinal expertly use high-angle to show the darkness that surrounds the people in Philipe's life,from a height that Phillipe will never be able to reach.Along with the stylish high-angles,Reed also works closely with editor Oswald Hafenrichter to give the "fall" of Phillipe and "the idol" a tremendously gripping tension,with Reed using Hafenricter's snappy editing to show that a "murder" may not be what it originally appears to be.Despite being a bit of a pain to work with on set, (although this would not stop Reed from working with child actors in the future)Bobby Henrey gives an excellent performance as Phillipe,with Phillipe never being allowed to become a sickly-sweet character,thanks to Henrey showing Philipe's smile to slowly fade away as the "true" faces of the adults are revealed,which leads to Philipe's smile being replaced by a strong sense,of anger,confusion and disbelief.Joining Henrey,and backed by a wonderful supporting cast which includes a charmingly gruff Bernard Lee,Ralph Richardson gives an amazing performance as Baines,with Richardson complementing Henrey's performance by showing Baines to be someone who is deeply humble,but is also unable to stop the deadly mist which is stopping any light from entering his life,which Baines soon discovers stops him saving the fall of an "idol",that leads to Phillipe's childhood innocence being permanently decayed from the fallen idol.

From the first moments you are a part of Phillipe's world as he peers through the staircase at his idol, Baines, and the hustle and bustle of people on the move. His parents have gone away for a couple of days and he is left in the charge of housekeeper, she-devil Mrs. Baines, who is as malevolent as her husband is kindly. I do love this film but hadn't been prompted to write a review until I read several comments about how "irritating" the little boy, Bobby Henrey appeared. I was so surprised. I didn't think he was annoying at all. Carol Reed may have despaired at having to direct him, apparently he had a very short attention span and in order to maintain his look of wonder Reed would position grips and electricians (people who had befriended the child) just out of camera range to keep him focused. I thought Henrey embodied the age of wonder, where everything was truth and beautiful. In fact his whole personality is what gives the movie the intensity and tension.He is a lonely little boy whose only friends are a little snake, McGregor, which he keeps in a loose brick in the wall and Baines who treats him to winks and funny dances when no one is looking. But Baines (the outstanding Ralph Richardson) has his own dramas, he is in love with Julie (Michelle Morgan), a secretary at the Embassy, and desperately wants to divorce his wife whose jealousy and vindictiveness comes out in her handling of Phillipe. Yes, Phillipe can be tiresome - in the scene where he finds Baines and Julie at a cafe (Baines had been barred, by his wife, from taking Phillipe for a walk) and won't leave them alone, but isn't that what most little kids would be like. I felt a lot of sympathy for the little boy - at a zoo outing he is mostly ignored and ends up dejectedly feeding the birds. He is drawn into the lies that Baines has woven for him, whether it is the "secret" of Baines meeting his "niece", to tall tales of derring do Baines weaves around his pistol.When Mrs. Baines accidentally falls to her death, Phillipe, who saw the struggle at the top of the stairs, then her lying motionless at the bottom (he missed in between that showed it was an accident and Baines wasn't even there) like a true friend, is determined to prove Baines is innocent. It is Phillipe's irritating behaviour that has the film on a knife edge of intensity. Drowning in all the secrets and lies Phillipe decides to lie to the police and as Baines tells the truth (that he and his wife had words because she attacked the boy) Phillip's subterfuge places more and more suspicion on Baines. The Chief of Police uses wheedling methods to trip the little boy up, only Jack Hawkins as the solidly straight forward detective is the movie's breath of fresh air. There seems to be a huge sigh of relief when Phillipe is roughly pushed onto a chair and told to be quiet.Again it is when Phillip is out of the room (being given a lecture by Julie that he has to start telling the truth) that the police see the open window and realise the woman had been trying to get to Julie and slipped over the stairs. For the last five minutes the stress and suspense is now created by the little boy who now wants to tell the truth. "I've got something to tell you", "Please listen", "why won't you hear me" - all said in this thin, piping voice makes for very suspenseful viewing and the very end scene, when his mother (actually Henrey's real mother) calls "Phillipe" you know his life and personality have changed forever.Highly Recommended.

Even though this is a well made movie regarding direction and cinematography, I found the plot to be lacking in depth, and the characters are not very likable. Not likable enough as to care what happens to them anyways. Philip, the little boy that is the protagonist, is one of the most annoying kids ever captured on film. He is exactly how Dennis the Menace would look if you were to put him in a film noir. I found my self thinking that I would never want to have kids on more than one occasion during this film ! As the entire plot revolved around the ill-mannered little devil, i found it to be very very thin. I wouldn't bother watching this film if I knew what it was about. Much better "film noir" movies out there...

After seeing this film for the second time, I am upgrading my review of it. The one fault this film has is a problem in many older British films -- segments of it have a slow pace. There are definitely parallels here to Hitchcock's style of directing and type of story. However, Hitchcock would have kept the pace up throughout. The film is based on a short story by Graham Greene, and was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Direction and Screenplay.The film highlights a positive relationship between a butler and the young son of a diplomat. The boy idolizes the butler (hence the title). But, the butler (Ralph Richardson) is involved in an affair that he is hiding...but not too well...which the boy stumbles upon. The butler's wife...well, you sort of hope she will meet a bad end...and she does...falling to her death from a window while trying to catch her husband's infidelity. The boy sees part of the incident and jumps to the conclusion that it was murder...while it really was an accident. Of course, he wants to protect his idol, but only manages to make things worse...a sort of "oh what a terrible tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive" situation.Ralph Richardson is superb here, as are the two women -- his wife (Sonia Dresdel...who will remind you a bit of Gail Sondergaard) and his mistress (Michele Morgan). The only other actor here that most Americans will recognize is Jack Hawkins, who does nicely as the inspector investigating the death. However, special note should be made of the young actor who plays the boy -- Bobby Henrey, who does much better than most of the child actors of that era.I highly recommend this film! It's a good "page turner".