Review: Green for Danger

Set at a small country hospital during WWII, a local postman dies on the operating table under mysterious circumstances. Doctor Trevor Howard seems to be the prime suspect, having had another patient die under similar circumstances. Meanwhile, smug womanising doctor Leo Genn gets caught kissing nurse Sally Gray by another jealous nurse who claims the postman’s death was actually murder. Then the accusing nurse herself winds up dead. Enter Scotland Yard Inspector Alastair Sim, set to get to the bottom of things, albeit like a bull in a china shop. Megs Jenkins plays one of the other nurses.

 

Although the guilty party tries just a tad too much to be noticed, this 1946 mystery-thriller from director Sidney Gilliat (screenwriter of Hitchcock’s classic “The Lady Vanishes”) and co-writer Claud Gurney (his second and final screen credit, having died the same year at just 49 years of age) is an enjoyable experience. I actually rather preferred the early moments that merely focussed on the day-to-day running of this hospital during WWII. It must’ve been incredibly difficult to perform important medical procedures with planes crashing and bombs going off all around.

 

Leo Genn makes for an amusingly smug, self-satisfied smoothie and I should probably stop thinking of him as the poor man’s James Mason, because he seems to give a solid performance in just about everything. Meanwhile, Alastair Sim reins in his colourful performance just enough that it’s never jarringly comedic, so much as eccentric and a bit ‘busy’. It’s an unmistakably Sim character and performance, but there’s also a little bit of Agatha Christie eccentric detective in there too I think. A young-ish Trevor Howard is perfectly fine as a doctor with a somewhat blemished record. Megs Jenkins is good colourful support too, and the B&W cinematography by DOP Wilkie Cooper (Hitchcock’s “Stage Fright”) is terrific.

 

An interesting and entertaining WWII murder-mystery with solid performances from most of the cast. Alastair Sim might chew the scenery a bit too much for some, I think he merely adds welcome flavour to something that could’ve been rather dry. Leo Genn takes top acting honours, however.

 

Rating: B-

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