Undescribable Perfection

Thanks for the memories!

Best movie ever!

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The police find a man dressed as a priest with his hands in a safe. They arrest him but he turns out to be Father Brown (Alec Guinness) who was returning the money stolen by a parishioner. The church is sending the Holy Cross of Saint Augustine to the Eucharistic Congress in Rome. The police tell them that elusive thief Flambeau is after the priceless artifact like the many treasures he has stolen in the last 10 years. Nobody knows what the master of disguise actually looks like. Father Brown determines that the police would be easy targets for Flambeau and transports the Cross himself. Eventually he is alone with Flambeau as intended and he tries to reform him. Flambeau refuses and escapes with the Cross. Despite the disappointment, he tries to entice Flambeau again with the help of Lady Warren.Alec Guinness is great as Father Brown. It's a great character and Guinness is magnificent playing him. It's a fun mystery for awhile until Flambeau is revealed. Then it repeats again and again for Father Brown. It's fun to watch him in a caper to catch Flambeau. It's less fun to watch him try to convert Flambeau. Guinness always tries to keep his character light and fun.

This was a completely mediocre film--and that's a real shame, as I usually LOVE Alec Guinness movies. This movie lacks so much of the imagination and energy of his other movies from this same era (such as THE LADY KILLERS or THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT) and overall is just a standard amateur detective flick in the guise of a rather unbelievable priest. Guinness plays Father Brown--a very idealistic, and at times bumbling, clergy man. Peter Finch plays an international thief who loves to steal one-of-a-kind relics--the type that really can't be re-sold--so he's obviously some kind of nutter (that's British for "loony"). Despite ample opportunities to turn in Finch to the coppers, Guinness actually hinders the police and lies repeatedly (oh well, since he's a priest I guess he can always give himself absolution for these sins). Why? Well, because Guinness knows that it's more important to save the man's soul than find the booty. While this is true in a spiritual sense, it was awfully idealistic (not to mention stupid), but since this is a rather predictable film, in the end Finch somehow sees the light (though I really wasn't sure why). The film earns a 5 simply because I like watching Alec Guinness and Finch does a pretty good job, though the material is awfully lame.

This is another of the often ignored 'small' Guinness films from the early and mid-50's that rarely get the attention they deserve. While it had a brief revival last fall at Britain's National Film Theatre, it doesn't seem to show up that often in Guinness retrospectives.A number of elements in this gently comic film that are worthy of notice: Sir AlecÕs performance is deft, subtle and delightfully wry whether he is playing the sleuth or spouting philosophy to the villain Flambeau.An added treat is a cast that includes Peter Finch, who won an Oscar for Network, Joan Greenwood, who was Lady Balleston in Tom Jones and Bernard Lee who portrayed M in the James Bond series. Guinness, Greenwood and Cecil Parker (The Bishop) also appeared together in the Ealing Studio comedy, The Man in the White Suit.Another interesting aspect is that a large part of the film was shot on location in Paris and rural France, apparently a rarity for the British films of that era.Finally a bit of trivia: After his portrayal of Father Brown, Guinness converted to Catholicism

Of all the names in the pantheon of great literary detectives, G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown is easily the most overlooked. The character has appeared in only a handful of films and a 13 episode television series in the early seventies. Of the films, The Detective(US title) is the best. Alec Guinness plays the affable cleric with an insatiable appetite for puzzles very nicely. Guinness shows us the heart and dedication Father Brown has to his calling spiritually over any temporal considerations. He also shows us that Father Brown is a character with depth as he takes lessons in karate and truly learns what the lives of his less than well-off parishioners are like. The heart of this film is Gunness's subtle comedic performance as a man challenging himself to catch a thief named Flambeau in the act of stealing his own church's cross that belonged to St. Augustine. Father Brown wants to save the soul of this man as well as the cross. The cat and mouse game between the two is fun fluff, and is vastly entertaining as that rather than a true mystery. Flambeau is played by a very young Peter Finch with class and style.The film boasts a fine array of British character actors with the likes of Bernard Lee(M from James Bond fame), Cecil Parker(King Roderick from The Court Jester and more), Joan Greenwood(Kind Hearts and Coronets), and my personal favourite, Ernest Thesiger from The Bride of Frankenstein. Thesiger has little screen time yet is very amusing in his role. A nice little mystery once again showcasing the comedic talent of one of our century's best actors...Sir Alec Guinness.