Author:
Susan
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Date Posted: 11:20:55 02/14/02 Thu
I got "The Green Cockatoo" in the mail the other day ... I was so excited to have something *new* with RN to watch, I couldn't wait to pop it in the machine, even though I knew I wouldn't have time to see the whole thing in one sitting. But I can give you my review of the first twenty minutes!
I found your previous comments about the movie in the archive, Wini. (You're right about the casting of Bobby and John Mills as brothers. It was a stretch to imagine that they could even be *related*! It was easier for me to accept Laurence Olivier and Leslie Banks as siblings in "21 Days"!) I had no idea John Mills was a tap dancer! He was really good!
Is it just me, or did a lot of what happened in the first half hour seem really implausible??? Or were people really naive back then? I have to give away some of the plot to explain what I mean (this all takes place in the first 20 minutes) so, if you haven't seen it and don't want to know any of what happens beforehand, please cover your eyes! And then come back after you've seen it and share your opinion. :-)
First a minor spoiler (this is the type of thing I like to be warned of in advance): RN gets killed off within the first 20 minutes ... but, apart from the flaws in the *plot*, it's a really good 20 minutes, from a RN standpoint. He has a major role in almost every scene--which is as much (or even more) screen time as he got in Odd Man Out, plus you don't have to wait through the whole movie to see him. (And he looks exceptionally handsome, even moreso than in the first Beachcomber, IMHO ... See, Erin, you're not the only "shallow" one! I know someone else who's not going to like his accent though. ;-) )
Now for the major plot spoilers: A woman is falsely accused of having just committed murder and runs away before the accusers even call the police, instead of bothering to try to explain. Hadn't the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" come to England yet? Where was the murder weapon? First she notices he's hurt and loosens his tie, then all of a sudden she's holding this sharp object that kind of looks like a knife (but it looked a lot smaller than the one actually used to me)--was *that* the knife they used to stab RN? Had it been stuck in him all that time??? They don't show her pulling it *out* of him; maybe you're supposed to assume she did. Anyway, the object, whatever it was, looked perfectly clean when she held it up. And I'm sure it wouldn't take a forensic scientist to see that he'd already been bleeding for quite a while; wouldn't some of the blood have dried by then, proving that she didn't just do it? Why did no one notice he was bleeding? (Oh, that's right, the world was in black and white back then, so a person bleeding to death would be easy to overlook!) And how could she have walked him all the way to the hotel, practically holding him up, without noticing he was injured, seeing the knife handle sticking out of him, or getting blood all over herself?
Something else that was a little hard to buy--a strange man in a strange city suddenly invades her telephone booth, then offers her a place to stay ... at first she's wary, but as soon as he tells her, "It's OK, you can trust me," she relaxes and goes along with him?! (Then again, I can't blame her; if the stranger were Robert Newton, I probably would have too.)
And then the whole crime for which he's killed off seems kind of ridiculous to me. The gang is dumb enough to pay Bobby off in advance for fixing the race??? And then he's stupid enough *not* to do it? Then his brother actually has to *tell* him he's not safe and should get out of town???
Then there was that "message" he so desperately wanted her to give to his brother, "Green Cockatoo, Terrill" ... like John Mills isn't already going to know whodunit?
Please tell me if I'm missing something here--which is entirely possible. Maybe I should reserve judgement until I finish watching it, but it's proving a little tough to get into, especially now with RN out of the picture! Is it worth going on?
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