Eight years after The Gaunt Stranger, Sidney Gilliat once more did battle with a whodunit in this terse, wry thriller taken from a novel by Christianna Brand. Brand’s Inspector Cockrill investigates a suspected hospital murder after a patient has mysteriously died on the operating table: all the doctors and nurses present at the operation are suspects.
Gilliat: ‘Green for Danger was by no means ill-received by the critics; but it mortified me somewhat that nobody at all spotted that it was, so to speak, a film presented in quotation marks, dotted with references to the stereotypes of half a century of detective fiction, with an affectionate side-swipe at the arrogantly omniscient Detective figure of the genre. (I was in fact almost as disappointed as when I inserted a reference in a later picture, State Secret, to Rudolf Rassendyl’s breakfast egg especially for the benefit of C. A. Lejeune and she never even noticed it!).
The novel, by Christianna Brand, had not been recommended as film material by the story department of the Rank Organisation and I bought a copy at Victoria Station just to while away a journey. I was attracted not by the detective, Inspector Cockrill, who, though by no means as dull a plodder as Inspector French, did not exhibit very much in the way of élan; nor particularly by the hospital setting, then still held by many distributors and exhibitors to be death at the box-office.
No, what appealed to me was the Anaesthetics – the rhythmic ritual, from wheeling the patient out to putting him out and keeping him out (in this case permanently) – with all those cross-cutting opportunities offered by flow-meters, hissing gas cylinders, palpitating rubber bags and all the other trappings, in the middle of the Blitz, too. As for that unfortunate whodunit element, I largely informed myself and my collaborator Claud Gurney, we would lose it altogether or at the least reduce its importance. But Miss Brand had integrated her story far too well, and in the end we had to change tack and – on the principle, one supposes, of if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em – deliberately make capital of the very clichés of the detective novel, in the course of which Cockrill turned into the spritely conceited extrovert of the film with a dash of mild sadism and a decided tendency to jump to the wrong conclusion; and incidentally became the narrator.
The blitz of the novel we changed into the 1944 VI attacks as being by far the most dramatic of the various assaults on the old folks at home. One or two other points that might be of interest: with the exception of two exceedingly brief shots at the beginning, the film was photographed entirely inside the studio, exteriors and all, in three main complexes, the sets taking up the whole of Pinewood and all standing at the same time – delightful, but terribly expensive! The operating theatre was built twice over, so that to shoot reverse shots one simply moved a couple of yards to the “spare” theatre without having to float anything or change around properties.
There were in fact no operations, the patient being either dead or dying before the surgeon could sharpen his scalpel; but this did not prevent the British Film Censor from bizarrely putting a total ban on the picture on the strange ground that any wounded soldiers who might see the film (there were still plenty of them in 1946) would be so overcome by the fear of being murdered by one of the nurses that it could seriously affect their chance of recovery! We pointed out to him that he must be thinking of the novel where the action took place in a military hospital – in the film there wasn’t a wounded soldier to identify with in sight. In the end it turned out that he had indeed been thinking of the book and that he had in fact expressed the wish that it should not have been filmed at all, but his letter had become a casualty somewhere down the line. A splendid lunch at the best black market restaurant in Soho restored amity and amour propre and he finally passed the picture with only one cut, the reasons for which still totally escape me.’
Claud Gurney, Gilliat’s script collaborator (and the producer of The Body Was Well Nourished), was due to join Launder and Gilliat in Individual Pictures, but he died during production after a car accident. The script was worked out when Launder was in America sorting out the presentation and distribution of I See a Dark Stranger. And the new film had equal distribution problems. Launder: ‘They obviously thought little of it, because they pushed it out with little presentation or publicity in a very poor release form. When it took off, they attempted to retrieve the position, but it is difficult once the initial damage is done. However, gradually it built up to a success in Britain. Indeed, it was a considerable success all over the world, particularly in the States, but, alas, like I See a Dark Stranger, it suffered there from those vast distribution and exploitation expenses.’
Geoff Brown, Launder and Gilliat (BFI, 1977)
A contemporary review
Though the story has plenty of improbabilities when considered in cold blood, this thriller holds one well when on the screen. Alastair Sim is most amusing as the self-important detective who enjoys tormenting his suspects, but who comes a partial cropper despite his assurance. Leo Genn contributes an excellent portrait of the philandering but humorous and likeable Eden. Trevor Howard as Barnes has a bad-tempered and less attractive part in comparison. Sally Gray and Rosamund John make attractive nurses, and the whole cast is good in this clever Launder and Gilliat production.
Monthly Film Bulletin, January 1947
GREEN FOR DANGER
Directed by: Sidney Gilliat
J. Arthur Rank presents
An Individual Picture
Released by: General Film Distributors
A Launder Gilliat Production
Production Manager: A.S. Bates
Assistant Director: Percy Hermes
The Screenplay by: Sidney Gilliat, Claud Gurney
From the novel by: Christianna Brand
Director of Photography: Wilkie Cooper
Cameraman: Oswald Morris
Editor: Thelma Myers
Production Designer: Peter Proud
The Music Composed by: William Alwyn
The Music Played by: The London Symphony Orchestra
Under the direction of: Muir Mathieson
Sound Recordist: Eric Clennell
Sound System: Western Electric
Made at: D&P Studios
Made at: Pinewood Studios
uncredited
Production Company: Independent Producers
2nd Assistant Director: Christopher Noble
3rd Assistant Director: Eric Braun
4th Assistant Director: Lawrence G. Knight
Continuity: Patricia Arnold
Focus Puller: Frank Ellis
Clapper Loaders: Revel King, Alan Perry
Grips: A. Marks
Stills: Arthur Evans
Special Effects: Percy Ralphs
Assistant Editor: Norah Walsh
2nd Assistant Editors: Kenneth Peck, Bill Lenny, David Withers
Art Director: William Hutchinson
Set Dresser: Vernon Dixon
Draughtsman: John Hoesli
Prop Master: Jack Crowhurst
Construction: Harold Batchelor, Fred Kleeman
Dress Supervisor: Michael Waite
Costumes: Raemonde Rahvis, Dora Rahvis
Wardrobe: Kathleen Moore
Make-up: Stuart Freeborn
Assistant Make-up: Eric Carter
2nd Assistant Make-up: Sylvia Croft
Hairstyles: Betty Baugh, Biddy Chrystal
Assistant Hairstylist: Kathleen Smith
Music Recordist: Ted Drake
Chief Production Mixer: John Dennis
Sound Recordist: Alan Hogban
Sound Camera Operator: Harry Raynham
Boom Operator: Jack Locke
Assistant Boom: P.J. Craig
Dubbing Crew: Gordon K. McCallum, J.B. Smith, Charles Knott, Bill Daniels, H. Clarke
Dubbing Editor: John Seabourne Jr
Cast
the hospital staff – the doctors
Leo Genn (Mr Eden)
Henry Edwards (Mr Purdy)
Trevor Howard (Dr ‘Barney’ Barnes)
Ronald Adam (Dr White)
the hospital staff – the nurses
Judy Campbell (Sister Marion Bates)
Wendy Thompson (Sister Carter)
Rosamund John (Nurse Esther Sanson)
Sally Gray (Nurse Freddi Linley)
Megs Jenkins (Nurse Woods)
John Rae (the porter)
the patients
Moore Marriott (Joseph Higgins, the postman)
Frank Ling (rescue worker)
the police
Alastair Sim (Inspector Cockrill)
George Woodbridge (Detective Sergeant Hendricks)
uncredited
Hattie Jacques
Elizabeth Sydney
UK 1946
91 mins
35mm
A BFI National Archive print
MARTIN SCORSESE SELECTS HIDDEN GEMS OF BRITISH CINEMA
Shooting Stars
Sun 1 Sep 11:30; Mon 9 Sep 20:40
Brief Ecstasy
Tue 3 Sep 18:30; Wed 11 Sep 20:35
The Man in Grey
Fri 6 Sep 18:10; Tue 17 Sep 20:40
This Happy Breed
Fri 6 Sep 20:40; Tue 24 Sep 18:00
The Seventh Veil
Sat 7 Sep 15:10; Wed 25 Sep 20:40
Green for Danger
Sun 8 Sep 15:40; Thu 26 Sep 20:55
It Always Rains on Sunday
Sun 8 Sep 18:10; Fri 27 Sep 20:50
Hue and Cry
Sat 14 Sep 20:30; Mon 30 Sep 18:15 (+ intro by Josephine Botting, Curator, BFI National Archive)
Uncle Silas
Sat 14 Sep 18:20
Terence Fisher Double Bill: To the Public Danger + Stolen Face
Sun 15 Sep 18:10; Tue 1 Oct 20:30
Mandy
Mon 16 Sep 18:35; Sat 28 Sep 12:20
Yield to the Night
Fri 20 Sep 18:00; Sat 28 Sep 15:10
The Flesh and the Fiends
Sat 21 Sep 14:50; Wed 2 Oct 20:40
The Damned
Sat 21 Sep 20:40; Fri 4 Oct 18:30
Station Six Sahara
Sun 22 Sep 12:30; Sat 5 Oct 16:00
The Mind Benders
Sun 22 Sep 18:00; Wed 2 Oct 18:20
Went the Day Well? + intro by James Bell, Senior Curator, BFI National Archive
Mon 23 Sep 18:20
The Pumpkin Eater
Fri 27 Sep 18:00; Sun 6 Oct 15:00
Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde
Sat 28 Sep 18:10; Thu 3 Oct 18:15 + intro by Sam Clemens, son of Brian Clemens
The Legend of Hell House
Sat 28 Sep 20:40; Mon 7 Oct 18:20
Guns at Batasi
Sun 29 Sep 18:20; Sat 5 Oct 18:20
With thanks to
Martin Scorsese and Edgar Wright
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Programme notes and credits compiled by Sight and Sound and the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
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