Synopsis
An open and shut case of Guinness! Up to his EARS in chaos... Up to his NECK in laughs
Works of art are disappearing, stolen by a master thief, a master of disguise. Father Brown has two goals: to catch the thief and to save his soul.
1954 Directed by Robert Hamer
Works of art are disappearing, stolen by a master thief, a master of disguise. Father Brown has two goals: to catch the thief and to save his soul.
Alec Guinness Joan Greenwood Peter Finch Cecil Parker Bernard Lee Sid James Gérard Oury Ernest Thesiger Ernest Clark Everley Gregg Austin Trevor Marne Maitland Noel Howlett Eugene Deckers Jim Gérald Launce Maraschal Daniel Clérice Aubrey Woods John Salew Sam Kydd John Horsley Jack McNaughton Hugh Dempster Betty Baskcomb Diana Van Proosdy Dino Galvani Hugo Schuster Guido Lorraine
The Detective, Die seltsamen Wege des Pater Brown, Father Brown - Detective, Отец Браун-детектив, Uno strano detective, Aventuras do Padre Brown, El detective, Отец Браун, Détective du bon Dieu
Oh, how lovely! Alec Guinness is splendid as G.K. Chesterton's eponymous priest in this delightful version directed by Robert Hamer.
A master criminal, Gustave Flambeau (Peter Finch), who specialises in stealing things of great beauty, is known by the police to want to steal the priceless cross from Father Ignatius Brown's church, and he has the chance when it is to be transported to France on a pilgrimage of some sort. Father Brown defies the police's plans and decides to transport the cross himself. But he is less concerned in saving the holy relic from getting into Flambeau's hands than he is in saving Flambeau's soul. To do so he must evade the police and bring Lady Warren (Joan Greenwood) into his plans.
Watched on Channel 4.
A performance variation upon Alec Guinness’s extant Reverend Lord Henry D’Ascoyne: all gumminess and eyes like scuttling peas.
It’s certainly mannered, although no more than the film demands for fruity incidence and genre certainties. But it, and the overall light tone, tend to a kind framing of the central matter of repentance. And it’s in the seemingly inconsequential that Father Brown, the film and character, quietly succeeds almost by sneaking up on you.
It’s hardly a sugared pill, and light on explicit Chesterton paradox, but Father Brown illustrates humbling and piety without clatter and not a little kindness. The parable of The Prodigal Son - with amplification from Dostoevsky for good measure - semi-disguised as an elegant little romp with Chesterton’s famous dictum found, tried and illustrated too. Lovely stuff.
Whether it is Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot or Benoit Blanc, we are used to film detectives being the smartest person in the room, solving crimes to demonstrate their brilliance and to burnish their pride and ego. And then there is the self-effacing, gimlet-eyed modesty of Alec Guinness’s Catholic priest Father Brown, motivated not by glory or reward, or even by recovering a priceless religious artefact, but by a desire to redeem men’s souls for God. The character was created by G. K. Chesterton, one of the UK’s most prominent Christian apologetics, but the film carries its overt religiosity surprisingly lightly, largely thanks to Guinness’s easy gift for gentle comedy.
The central mystery isn’t particularly mysterious, but nor is it meant…
I've been wanting to watch an Alec Guinness Father Brown since I first read about them several years ago, but they were impossible to find in the US. Well, I just discovered Tubi has it under the name The Detective and it's going off in two days! So glad I got a chance to watch it. The books are written by G.K. Chesterton, and he is such a fun writer, taking things where you don't expect. Not the plot necessarily, but the turn of phrase, the attitude. Chesterton has a way of turning piety on it's head. This priest is fully a priest, concerned most of all with men's souls, but his detecting abilities are nothing trifle. He is after…
Father Brown (Alec Guiness) loses his church's historic cross to master criminal Flambeau (Peter Finch) and sets about trying to get it back, to save not only his own job but Flambeau's soul.
With this cast, which also includes Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker, Bernard Lee and Sid James, and directed by Robert Hamer, who was responsible for Kind Hearts and Coronets, and with it being a light-hearted crime caper, this film might easily be mistaken for an Ealing Comedy. But it's not and to be honest the subject matter really doesn't fit in with that's studio's most famous works.
For a start the religious overtones are overt. As I've already said, Father Brown is just as much interested in Flambeau's…
I want to help a man by curing a sickness of his soul. You want to put him in prison because of that same sickness"
It's that line that arguably illustrates the chasm between GK Chesterton's amateur detective Father Brown and his fellow sleuths such as Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and the like. Where their investigations serve as a kind of coldly clinical, intellectual parlour game, Chesterton's hero engages in detection with as much intention of saving the soul of the culprit as he has in solving their crime or bringing them to justice.
In this screen adaptation of The Blue Cross from director Robert Hamer and writer Thelma Schnee (alongside the uncredited, blacklisted emigre Maurice Rapf), Alec Guinness is great casting as the seemingly meek and mild cleric, as the role makes great use of his chameleon qualities to illustrate Brown's unobtrusiveness and self effacement, whilst Peter Finch's urbane thief Flambeau characterises the melancholy beneath his surface charm.
Alec Guinness convincingly plays "Father Brown, Detective," but there is no mystery in this. It is more of a light comedy, with Father Brown trying to persuade 1st one then another criminal to go straight.
Father Brown to a crook: I'm disappointed in you. Frankly, you are an incompetent thief. You are clearly incapable of earning a dishonest living. Why not experiment with an honest one?
6.25/10 (owing to the acting in this, but the mystery/plot is not particularly engaging)
Other BRITISH films that are, in my book, of respectable quality.
3rd Robert Hamer (after Kind Hearts and Coronets and 'The Haunted Mirror' from Dead of Night)
When the question of 'who is the great English detective?' inevitably comes up, my guess would be that nine times out of ten, people would say 'Sherlock Holmes'. It's not hard to see why- he's an urbane, highly intellectual figure, with a patented mode of deduction that marks him out as unique. Yet, of late, I've come to find Father Brown far more interesting. Apart from the series on the BBC currently, G.K. Chesterton's sleuthing priest has never really had the same success as Conan Doyle's creation. Perhaps it's because he's rather old fashioned- a Catholic priest in an era where religion is less…
Alec Guinness is Father Brown, a priest who learns from his sinful flock, tries to bring them to a more honest way of living and to prevent crimes (and then solve them when he fails to prevent them). This is a charming film, I had never heard of it until I came across it on youtube. Some won't like the way that Alec Guinness plays his priest (he apparently converted to Catholicism shortly after making this film) but I thought he was great.
stellar cast: alec guinness, sid james, joan greenwood, bernard lee and cecil parker
Don't you see, if they'd caught you, I couldn't have.
I wasn't expecting to need to use my "gay priest romance" tag again so soon...
There's a baffling scene in this where Alec Guinness sneaks away with Peter Finch to the Paris catacombs so that they can be away from the prying eyes of the law ("We are quite certain not to be disturbed here." /
"I've been longing for a quiet little talk with you."), before they wrestle, pinning each other to the ground in a clinch, while talking about how they understand who the other really is, but desperately want to know more.
Guinness plays a Catholic priest and amateur sleuth who is an ardent fan of the skill and audacity of Finch's dandy art thief, Gustav Flambeau (lit. flaming torch). The whole film is just Guinness caught up in the chase, Finch allowing himself to be caught. Romance!
Alec Guinness has a lot of fun as Father Brown, even if the material lets him down a bit.