Sep 30, 2021
Beautiful Stranger (Twist of Fate, 1954)
"Are you in love with him?"
"When I felt beaten and sick of being poor -"
"I said, are you in love with him?"
"He's done everything for me and I can't do anything to hurt him."
"I said love."
#beautiful stranger#twist of fate#1954#british cinema#films i done watched#Alford Van Ronkel#Carl Nystrom#david miller#ginger rogers#stanley baker#herbert lom#Jacques bergerac#Margaret rawlings#Eddie Byrne#coral browne#Lisa gastoni#Lily kann#ferdy mayne#Keith pyott#Nicholas Bruce#A messy film which might be aiming for Brit noir but is little more than cheap melodrama. This was Ginger's only British film (?)#(I'm p certain) and she came over to shoot it‚ bringing her husband and making sure he got a meaty role into the bargain. The real draw for#Me was Baker and Lom‚ altho the former is a disappointment (badly miscast in a role very clearly intended for a considerably older man)#Lom tho is in fine form; sporting the shaven head I've only ever seen on him in The Ladykillers (made the following year) he's a rather#Sympathetic creep; a slightly pathetic low level hood who constantly apologises to everyone around him and who tenderly touches#His own cheek when he sees Baker strike Rogers on hers. It's a beautiful performance and way above the one this film earned from him#The rest is so much blah‚ all plodding towards a fairly predictable close‚ and a dreadful song for the closing credits#At least the UK production means all the small supporting parts are played by familiar faces (John Le Mesurier has exactly half a line as a#Gambler who tries to pick Ginger up and is swiftly elbowed out of the way by Baker#While Ferdy Mayne is the ineffectual police chief who just kind of lets everything play out and then mops up the survivors)
