Adrian Messenger as played by John Merivale asks a friend George C. Scott to look up 12 names quite unofficially to see if these people are all still fogging mirrors. Right after that Merivale is killed in a plane crash that was caused by a bomb. That list becomes the key to finding his murderers as Scott and plane crash survivor Jacques Roux go on the hunt.
The List of Adrian Messenger is a nice murder mystery of the type that the British do so well. Had it not been for the gimmick of the heavily make-up laden stars playing bit roles except in two cases the film might well have stood on its own merits of well executed plot and good acting. Except for George C. Scott, like Gregory Peck in The Paradine Case he drifts in and out of an affected English accent.
Three of the stars, Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, and Burt Lancaster have small walk-on parts. I'm also reasonably sure that both Lancaster and Sinatra's voices were dubbed. Robert Mitchum has a small role as one of the names on The List of Adrian Messenger. He plays a cockney war veteran who was with Merivale in a prisoner of war camp in the Burma Theater of World War II. John Huston would have been foolish indeed not to have taken advantage of Mitchum's uncanny gift for speech mimicry. It's the POW camp and what happened there that's the reason for all this homicide.
The villain is Kirk Douglas and we see him in several disguises. Douglas was the co-producer of The List of Adrian Messenger so he gave himself the villain's role. Although he precipitated both a train wreck and a plane crash to get two of his victims, he's by no means mad. He's got a very well thought out plan and he comes close to completing it.
I agree with everyone else who has said that John Huston took this particular film assignment so he good indulge in fox hunting and get paid for it. He was living in Ireland at the time and the fox hunting scenes were shot there. In fact it's a fox hunt that is the climatic scene of the film. Douglas almost gets away with a final murder, but a well trained gypsy horse and a bloodhound foil the villain at the end.
Clive Brook came out of a 20 year retirement to play the Marquess of Gleneyre and his daughter-in-law is played by the beautiful Dana Wynter who always graces any film she's in. Herbert Marshall is the MI5 man who was Scott's superior in war time and Huston cast as the young heir to the Gleneyre title and Douglas's last potential victim with his son Walter Anthony Huston. All look quite comfortable in their roles.
The List of Adrian Messenger is a short film for an A feature. It moves effortlessly and pleasantly and will be good entertainment. And personally I think you'll like guessing who and where the walk-ons are.
The List of Adrian Messenger is a nice murder mystery of the type that the British do so well. Had it not been for the gimmick of the heavily make-up laden stars playing bit roles except in two cases the film might well have stood on its own merits of well executed plot and good acting. Except for George C. Scott, like Gregory Peck in The Paradine Case he drifts in and out of an affected English accent.
Three of the stars, Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, and Burt Lancaster have small walk-on parts. I'm also reasonably sure that both Lancaster and Sinatra's voices were dubbed. Robert Mitchum has a small role as one of the names on The List of Adrian Messenger. He plays a cockney war veteran who was with Merivale in a prisoner of war camp in the Burma Theater of World War II. John Huston would have been foolish indeed not to have taken advantage of Mitchum's uncanny gift for speech mimicry. It's the POW camp and what happened there that's the reason for all this homicide.
The villain is Kirk Douglas and we see him in several disguises. Douglas was the co-producer of The List of Adrian Messenger so he gave himself the villain's role. Although he precipitated both a train wreck and a plane crash to get two of his victims, he's by no means mad. He's got a very well thought out plan and he comes close to completing it.
I agree with everyone else who has said that John Huston took this particular film assignment so he good indulge in fox hunting and get paid for it. He was living in Ireland at the time and the fox hunting scenes were shot there. In fact it's a fox hunt that is the climatic scene of the film. Douglas almost gets away with a final murder, but a well trained gypsy horse and a bloodhound foil the villain at the end.
Clive Brook came out of a 20 year retirement to play the Marquess of Gleneyre and his daughter-in-law is played by the beautiful Dana Wynter who always graces any film she's in. Herbert Marshall is the MI5 man who was Scott's superior in war time and Huston cast as the young heir to the Gleneyre title and Douglas's last potential victim with his son Walter Anthony Huston. All look quite comfortable in their roles.
The List of Adrian Messenger is a short film for an A feature. It moves effortlessly and pleasantly and will be good entertainment. And personally I think you'll like guessing who and where the walk-ons are.