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Sunday, March 4, 2012

So Long At The Fair (1950)

An English brother (David Tomlinson, MARY POPPINS) and sister (Jean Simmons) are visiting the 1896 Paris Exhibition. That evening they go to Montmartre for dinner and then on to the Moulin Rouge before retiring. The following morning, the brother has disappeared and the hotel's manager (Cathleen Nesbitt) insists that Simmons arrived alone and there was no brother and not only that but the room no. 19 he was allegedly in ... does not exist! This little modest suspense film could have benefited from a more assured hand or perhaps it's because its plot (based on an urban legend) has been used before and since in films like THE LADY VANISHES and BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING to name just two that its "mystery" is no mystery at all. The film has the curious habit of having its French characters speak in French with no subtitles thus leaving those who don't speak French literally in the dark though it's clear from their expressions, that nothing good is going on. Directed by Antony Darnborough and Terence Fisher (who would go on to be a Hammer regular) with a score by Benjamin Frankel (who used some of this score for a concert piece). With Dirk Bogarde, Honor Blackman, Felix Aylmer, Zena Marshall and Andre Morell.

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