Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Jugu Abraham A young boy is the main character of a film with an Adult Certificate given by the British censors!The impressionable boy keeps the viewer wondering how the story will end.Who is the screenplay writer? The novelist Graham Greene. and Greene never lets you down.Director Sir Carol Reed went on to win honors for another boy centered film two decades later---"Oliver!"

Robert J. Maxwell Outstanding film of love, suspense, jealousy, rage, guilt, justice, and the uncomprehending nature of pre-pubescent boys.And what a cast. Ralph Richardson is the butler in the French embassy in London. The Ambassador's family takes off for a brief vacation, leaving the mansion to Richardson and his wife, and leaving them in custody of their young boy, Bobby Henrey. This must give Richardson a great deal of pleasure.Also giving Richardson a great deal of pleasure is his ongoing affair with the foxy featured blond Michelle Morgan, the embassy's typist. After all, Richardson isn't getting along with his wife for reasons that the script perhaps makes a little too obvious. She's practically bipolar.Richardson and Henrey get along very well though. The butler spins out long yarns involving lions in Africa and killing a Mau Mau leader in self defense. But then Richardson lies to him all the time, partly to entertain the child and partly to conceal from him the affair with Morgan, who, he tells the kid, is his "niece." Henrey, however, lacking the skill at deception that an adult would have, spills the beans to Richardson's wife, who goes berserk, whacks the kid around, has a violent confrontation with her husband, and, while trying to peek into the bedroom, slips from an overhead ledge in the manse and breaks her well-deserved neck.The authorities are called in. At first, they assume the body at the foot of the stairs is the result of an accident. But Richardson comes out with a couple of lies, trying to keep his girl friend out of it. And Henrey lies too, thinking he's helping his idol, except that every time he lies, he gets Richardson into more trouble, until the police are ready to take Richardson down to the precinct and charge him with murder.I first saw this many years ago and wasn't very impressed. The springboard for the story is pretty banal -- married man has an affair and tries to hide it from his wife. But I'm far more impressed now that I know more about what's up. I suppose that's a way of saying the movie is designed for an adult audience.Carol Reed directed with panache. There is hardly a static scene. When the cops are interrogating someone, the Chief Inspector -- Dennis O'Dea with the face of an IRS auditor -- and Richardson stand facing one another, but O'Dea's minions are wandering around in the background, listening carefully, glancing at Richardson, fiddling with some props. The photography by Georges Merinal is memorable, especially when Henrey is running around the dark and cobblestoned streets in his pajamas.There are moments of humor too. The French ambassador's secretary, Karel Stepanek, shows up and one of the detectives, proud of his command of a foreign language, keeps inserting French phrases into the conversation, in a terrible accent. Finally, he says to Stepanek in French that he's sorry for causing him all this trouble, and Stepanek glances at him with annoyance and says in English, "You would trouble me much less if you spoke English." And when Richardson, Morgan, and Henrey visit the zoo, the two lovers are deep in a quiet conversation, which the kid interrupts with, "Oh, look at the monkeys! Look at the monkeys! What are they doing?" Richardson looks at the monkeys -- which the viewer doesn't have a chance to do -- and uncomfortably hustles them away.It's enjoyable and suspenseful and is a kind of primer on how we can sometimes be led astray by our best intentions.

kidboots From the first moments you are a part of Phillipe's world as he peers through the staircase at his idol, Baines, and the hustle and bustle of people on the move. His parents have gone away for a couple of days and he is left in the charge of housekeeper, she-devil Mrs. Baines, who is as malevolent as her husband is kindly. I do love this film but hadn't been prompted to write a review until I read several comments about how "irritating" the little boy, Bobby Henrey appeared. I was so surprised. I didn't think he was annoying at all. Carol Reed may have despaired at having to direct him, apparently he had a very short attention span and in order to maintain his look of wonder Reed would position grips and electricians (people who had befriended the child) just out of camera range to keep him focused. I thought Henrey embodied the age of wonder, where everything was truth and beautiful. In fact his whole personality is what gives the movie the intensity and tension.He is a lonely little boy whose only friends are a little snake, McGregor, which he keeps in a loose brick in the wall and Baines who treats him to winks and funny dances when no one is looking. But Baines (the outstanding Ralph Richardson) has his own dramas, he is in love with Julie (Michelle Morgan), a secretary at the Embassy, and desperately wants to divorce his wife whose jealousy and vindictiveness comes out in her handling of Phillipe. Yes, Phillipe can be tiresome - in the scene where he finds Baines and Julie at a cafe (Baines had been barred, by his wife, from taking Phillipe for a walk) and won't leave them alone, but isn't that what most little kids would be like. I felt a lot of sympathy for the little boy - at a zoo outing he is mostly ignored and ends up dejectedly feeding the birds. He is drawn into the lies that Baines has woven for him, whether it is the "secret" of Baines meeting his "niece", to tall tales of derring do Baines weaves around his pistol.When Mrs. Baines accidentally falls to her death, Phillipe, who saw the struggle at the top of the stairs, then her lying motionless at the bottom (he missed in between that showed it was an accident and Baines wasn't even there) like a true friend, is determined to prove Baines is innocent. It is Phillipe's irritating behaviour that has the film on a knife edge of intensity. Drowning in all the secrets and lies Phillipe decides to lie to the police and as Baines tells the truth (that he and his wife had words because she attacked the boy) Phillip's subterfuge places more and more suspicion on Baines. The Chief of Police uses wheedling methods to trip the little boy up, only Jack Hawkins as the solidly straight forward detective is the movie's breath of fresh air. There seems to be a huge sigh of relief when Phillipe is roughly pushed onto a chair and told to be quiet.Again it is when Phillip is out of the room (being given a lecture by Julie that he has to start telling the truth) that the police see the open window and realise the woman had been trying to get to Julie and slipped over the stairs. For the last five minutes the stress and suspense is now created by the little boy who now wants to tell the truth. "I've got something to tell you", "Please listen", "why won't you hear me" - all said in this thin, piping voice makes for very suspenseful viewing and the very end scene, when his mother (actually Henrey's real mother) calls "Phillipe" you know his life and personality have changed forever.Highly Recommended.

Michael Neumann Before they made 'The Third Man', director Carol Reed and screenwriter Graham Greene collaborated on this mild-mannered suspense story, in which a precocious young boy's devotion to one of his father's servants is tested after he witnesses what appears to be his long-suffering idol pushing his wicked wife to her death down a flight of stairs. An investigation follows, but the film isn't really a mystery since the audience already knows more about what happened than any of the characters on screen. Truth will prevail, although the outcome is ambiguous: the police set matters straight, but they do so from a clue that has no connection to the suspected crime. If the film appears dated today it's only because they don't often make them of this high caliber anymore.