DVDs, 11/7.

"Old," contrary to the seeming belief system of some small DVD distributors, doesn't always mean "good." The Fallen Idol, re-released theatrically earlier this year by Rialto Pictures, and now on DVD by Criterion, coasts on the contemporary or posthumous status of director Carol Reed, but his great films, which include The Third Man, Odd Man Out and Outcast of the Islands, came to be overshadowed by his last works, which include Oliver!, the screen adaptation of the Oliver Twist musical, and Flap, a "comedy" about Native Americans starring Anthony Quinn. This "fall" of the one-time cinematic idol is what led Andrew Sarris to famously note (in his catalog of directors, The American Cinema, where he ranked Reed as "Less Than Meets the Eye") that "the decline of Carol Reed" is "too obvious to be belabored." Reed, he wrote, "steadily lost control of his medium as his feigned objectivity disintegrated into imperviousness. Reed's career demonstrates that a director who limits himself to solving technical problems quickly lapses into the decadence of the inappropriate effect." The Fallen Idol he deemed "too fastidious."

Widely regarded as one of his great films, The Fallen Idol proves, in the experience, to be stagy, confined, contrived and burdened with one of the more annoying child actors, or at least child characters, in the history of cinema. Still, it is a Carol Reed film and, as Jeffrey Anderson writes at Combustible Celluloid, regarding the theatrical re-release, though there are other films worthier of restoration, The Fallen Idol is "far more entertaining than most new movies." What's more, as the first collaboration between Reed and Graham Greene, it is of important historical interest; and it is one of Ralph Richardson's few major films.

For Andy Dursin at the Aisle Seat, The Fallen Idol is a "memorable British film that many critics rank with the decade's finest." Meanwhile, the acronymal DSH at the DVD Journal begins his review by comparing Reed to Martin Scorsese, who, he predicts, will receive his eventual Oscar for a minor film, just as Reed did. "Few directors have had such a run of brilliance" as Reed, DSH writes, adding that this film about a murder seen through the eyes of a pampered ambassador's kid (Bobby Henrey) enamored of the butler (Richardson), eventually accused of killing his shrewish wife, "is a sneaky, great film. The plot is modest, but every performance is outstanding and Reed's control of both the child actor (which the supplements describe as being hard to wrangle) and framing is never less than outstanding." Of the transfer on this Criterion disc, DSH notes that "the source-print has some missing frames and wear, but the transfer, given the source issues, is excellent and highlights the stunning black-and-white cinematography by Georges Périnal."

DVD Talk's running competing reviews. Glenn Erickson, the DVD Savant, is also high on The Fallen Idol calling it "a brilliant murder thriller," deeming it a "shrewdly moralistic, complicated 'Boy Who Cried Wolf' story that investigates the way children and adults misinterpret and misunderstand each other," adding that the transfer offers "a picture perfect presentation of this handsome B&W film." In a typical footnote, Erickson adds that "The Fallen Idol may have inspired the filming of Ted Tetzlaff's The Window of the following year. Never as naturalistically convincing as Reed's film, The Window nevertheless works up considerable tension when a tenement kid witnesses a murder but cannot get any of the adults in his life to believe him because of his habit of telling fibs."

Also at DVD Talk, Jamie S Rich goes against the grain of the "murder seen from the viewpoint of a child" notion. "Actually, to reduce The Fallen Idol to being a movie that is exclusively from a child's point of view would be to do it a disservice. Yes, its particular charm is that its plot ebbs and flows on the whims and dubious interpretive skills of an elementary school boy. Simultaneously, however, Reed and Greene also unlock the door to the rarefied world of a foreign embassy, an existence within regular society and standing apart from it. It's a world where anything can happen because it is beyond the gaze of normal citizens, and the true trouble comes from when a reality where anything is possible butts heads with a child's imagination, another pocket universe where anything can be perceived as possible."

Characteristically, DVD Beaver compares the current transfer of The Fallen Idol to the Regiion 2 version. Commenting on the film itself, Henrik Sylow sees the film continuing Reed's "coming of age theme from Odd Man Out, where Reed suggests, that man only can achieve self-control and maturity [through] overcoming life's challenges, and dealing with motifs their later stories also would touch upon, as believed perception versus actual perception, the voyeur element of spying and most importantly the hypocrisy of our leaders / idols / society," concluding that The Fallen Idol is, "while small and simple... One of the great films of British Cinema." Of the R1 Criterion, Sylow asserts that "Criterion have created the definitive digital version of this fine film and a perfect keepsake to add to your DVD library."

Earlier: David Lodge in the Guardian.

Posted by dwhudson at November 7, 2006 7:01 AM