The List of Adrian Messenger
Just finished watching "The List of Adrian Messenger" released by Universal back in 1969.
Based on the original novel by Phillip MacDonald that was released in 1959, "The List of Adrian Messenger" is a suspenseful Hitchcockian thriller that was filmed in glorious black and white - which makes it an interesting choice for the time period and heightens the tension of the movie's highly atmospheric moodiness.
A writer named Adrian Messenger (John Merivale) believes a series of apparently unrelated "accidental" deaths are actually linked murders. He asks his friend Anthony Gethryn (George C. Scott), recently retired from MI5, to help clear up the mystery. However, Messenger's plane is bombed while he is en route to collect evidence to confirm his suspicions and, with his dying breath, he tries to tell a fellow passenger the key to the mystery.
The passenger survives and turns out to be Raoul Le Borg (Jacques Roux), Gethryn's old World War II counterpart in the French Resistance. They join forces to investigate Messenger's list of names, and decode Messenger's final cryptic words. They establish that all on the list were together in a prisoner of war camp in Burma, where a Canadian sergeant, George Brougham, betrayed his fellow prisoners, foiling their escape attempt. Each has a reason to kill Brougham. It evolves that Brougham is their killer, but why? They deduce that he is about to come into prominence and cannot risk being recognized. Gethryn and Le Borg establish that he stands in line to an inheritance of the Bruttenholm family, landed gentry who are friends of Gethryn and the late Messenger, and who avidly engage in fox hunting.
Having disposed of all possible witnesses to his wartime treachery, Brougham (Kirk Douglas) appears at a Bruttenholm estate fox hunt and introduces himself as a member of the family (he has previously been seen only in disguise). It then becomes clear to the visiting Gethryn and Le Borg that Brougham's next victim is to be the young heir, Derek. In an attempt to divert Brougham, Gethryn makes known his investigation of Messenger’s list, calculating to set himself up as the next victim.
One of the most intriguing aspects of this movie is the use of makeup and masks to conceal the identity of several of the actors a la Mission Impossible style.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
TEN STARS!
https://www.amazon.com/List-Adrian-Me...
Based on the original novel by Phillip MacDonald that was released in 1959, "The List of Adrian Messenger" is a suspenseful Hitchcockian thriller that was filmed in glorious black and white - which makes it an interesting choice for the time period and heightens the tension of the movie's highly atmospheric moodiness.
A writer named Adrian Messenger (John Merivale) believes a series of apparently unrelated "accidental" deaths are actually linked murders. He asks his friend Anthony Gethryn (George C. Scott), recently retired from MI5, to help clear up the mystery. However, Messenger's plane is bombed while he is en route to collect evidence to confirm his suspicions and, with his dying breath, he tries to tell a fellow passenger the key to the mystery.
The passenger survives and turns out to be Raoul Le Borg (Jacques Roux), Gethryn's old World War II counterpart in the French Resistance. They join forces to investigate Messenger's list of names, and decode Messenger's final cryptic words. They establish that all on the list were together in a prisoner of war camp in Burma, where a Canadian sergeant, George Brougham, betrayed his fellow prisoners, foiling their escape attempt. Each has a reason to kill Brougham. It evolves that Brougham is their killer, but why? They deduce that he is about to come into prominence and cannot risk being recognized. Gethryn and Le Borg establish that he stands in line to an inheritance of the Bruttenholm family, landed gentry who are friends of Gethryn and the late Messenger, and who avidly engage in fox hunting.
Having disposed of all possible witnesses to his wartime treachery, Brougham (Kirk Douglas) appears at a Bruttenholm estate fox hunt and introduces himself as a member of the family (he has previously been seen only in disguise). It then becomes clear to the visiting Gethryn and Le Borg that Brougham's next victim is to be the young heir, Derek. In an attempt to divert Brougham, Gethryn makes known his investigation of Messenger’s list, calculating to set himself up as the next victim.
One of the most intriguing aspects of this movie is the use of makeup and masks to conceal the identity of several of the actors a la Mission Impossible style.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
TEN STARS!
https://www.amazon.com/List-Adrian-Me...
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