| Subject: Dead Men are Dangerous; first impressions |
Author:
Eva Danø
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Date Posted: 00:43:10 09/19/06 Tue
This movie would fall into the category "Romantic Thriller". It is wonderful to see Robert Newton as the romantic lead; there were too few such roles for him.
I found it quite entertaining, though the plot is just a bit far-reaching in spots.
***** SPOILER! *****
Our hero is an aspiring author, expecting to hear back any time from his publisher that his book has been accepted. Meanwhile the bills are piling up, but he is too proud to accept a loan from his well-to-do fiancee. When he arrives home late on a stormy night, he finds his manuscript with a rejection slip. In desparation, he starts to pack, but interrupts the job to take a letter to the mail box before the last collection. On the way, a large branch crashes down from a tree close by. When he checks it out, he realizes that the huge branch has fallen on a man, crushing him.
A spur of the moment decision makes him swap identities with the dead man by leaving some of his personal effects on the man, and removing his effects. He then catches the late bus to another neighborhood, where he puts up at a rooming house under an assumed name.
He reads in the paper that there is to be an inquest for the dead man, who was assumed to be himself. He disguises himself by slicking his hair down and donning a pair of huge horn rimmed glasses, and goes to the inquest. He sits in the gallery next to a stranger who is paying altogether too much attention to him, especially after he pulls the dead man's diary from his pocket, looking for his cigarette case. He is shocked when he hears that the dead man was stabbed to death before the branch fell; the verdict is murder, and he is the main suspect.
The stranger follows him to the rooming house, and when he next goes out, the stranger searches his room for the diary, and, when interrupted by the maid, pushes her down, so she falls and hits her head on the fireplace. The stranger manages to escape unseen, just before the landlady finds the dead servant.
A man hunt ensues, and our hero, who has met his fiancee in the park, climbs a tree to avoid detection. However, the stranger, who has followed him, catches up to him and takes him to his employer, where they try to make him tell them where the diary is. When he won't give it up, they kidnap his fiancee.
Meanwhile, he escapes from the stranger, and on his way to the manor where the girl is, he stops and tells a constable that the murderer can be found at the manor house. The stranger, who is the murderer, arrives at the manor house right after our hero, and the police show up in force moments later. The murderer tries to escape by jumping out the window, but is killed in the attempt.
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