If Undercover
(1943) was an unexpected find that played with existing conventions from Ealing’s
wartime productions, The Four Just Men
is an even more interesting discovery, a solid and enjoyable pre-war thriller from
1939 that offers an early example of the drama-propaganda production approach
that would soon dominate the studio. Expertly handled by director Walter Forde
and director of photography Roland Neame, with a taut and morally ambiguous
script from Angus Macphail, Sergei Nolbandov (director of Undercover) and Roland Pertwee (based on the Edgar Wallace story),
this presents Ealing as a strong purveyor of crime drama.
James Terry (Frank Lawton), James Brodie (Griffith Jones),
Leon Poiccard (Francis L. Sullivan), and Humphrey Mansfield (Hugh Sinclair) are
The Four Just Men. English patriots who have taken it upon themselves to usurp
tyranny and expose anti-British political intrigue and spies, yet their chosen
methods are murder, blackmail and sabotage: essentially operating as terrorists
or vigilantes in countries around the world. Holding down less-than-ordinary
jobs, each can be seen as a pseudo-Batman
figure: upper class dandies and well-regarded socialites by day, dangerous and
violent crime-fighters by night. Through the film, they investigate traitorous MP
Sir Hamar Ryman (Alan Napier), who has sold out his country but also holds the
key to preventing further sabotage and potential ruination.
This thriller storyline remains solid throughout, with some
enjoyable touches both deft and daft (Humphrey, an actor, is – naturally – a master
of disguise, allowing Sinclair to indulge in different wigs, moustaches, and clothes,
leading to a final performance where Humphrey (Sinclair) has to imitate Ryman
(Napier) in Parliament), and a romance sub-plot between Brodie and female
journalist Ann Lodge (Anna Lee) that demonstrates her own crime reporting and detective
skills (linking Brodie to the Four Just Men, recognising the scent of a
murdered woman’s perfume) rather than just being a convenient feminine presence
to fall into Brodie’s arms. The relationship between them is reminiscent of a good
screwball comedy at times, and there is a hint by the end that the Four Just
Men may now be the Three Just Men and One Just Woman.
The film also contains more creative visual touches than
I remember from Forde’s The Gaunt
Stranger (1938) or Cheer Boys Cheer (1939):
mobile camerawork in the opening sequences (and throughout) that reframes and
refocuses on objects in the frame, telling a story visually without relying on
dialogue or voiceover; the usual reliance on montage to move quickly through
exposition; and Ealing’s usual competent blend of location shooting (some
outside the Houses of Parliament) and studio-based work. There is also what
would (these days) be embraced as a metatextual or postmodern storytelling
device: playwright Brodie uses the experiences of the Four Just Men for the
plays he writes (which Humphrey acts in, and for which Poiccard provides the costumes!)
At a party early on, Brodie describes his latest plot (about a traitorous MP)
as needing a final act – which the film then provides, and we see the cast
gathered around a radio set to hear the final moments of the play of the Four
Just Men’s latest triumph, with an addendum (added once war had begun) that
while the Men were not able to prevent the powers of oppression and tyranny, ‘democracy
has risen to answer that challenge.’
Keeping the world safe for democracy, and killing in a
variety of entertaining and thrilling ways: in places, The Four Just Men feels like an early attempt at a Bond film...
[UPDATED April 2014: The Four Just Men is now available as part of The Ealing Studios Rarities Collection, Volume 2, from Network]
Next time, Ealing tries its hand at a Gainsborough-style period drama in its first colour film, Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948)...
DVD now available.
ReplyDelete