Venetian Bird

(The Assassin, Ralph Thomas, UK, 1952)

If the word quaint could ever be fairly used to describe the films of a previous era, it surely applies to the creaky mystery-thrillers produced in Britain by Betty Box in the 1940s and '50s.

This typically wordy, static crime story starring Richard Todd borrows its general ambience from The Third Man (1949) – though set in Venice rather than Vienna – while its more daft moments of Baroque design and lighting anticipate Orson Welles' Mr Arkadin (1955).

It does, however, contain a definite historic curiosity: a music score by the great Nino Rota. And it is scripted by Victor Canning, whose novel The Rainbird Pattern formed the basis for Hitchcock's final film, Family Plot (1976).

© Adrian Martin January 1993