Whole Truth, The (1958) (UK Import) (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Jul 30, 2024
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
John GuillerminRelease Date(s)
1958 (June 17, 2024)Studio(s)
Romulus Films/Columbia Pictures (Indicator/Powerhouse Films)- Film/Program Grade: B
- Video Grade: A-
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: A-
Review
[Editor’s Note: This is a United Kingdom Region B import.]
Reasonably diverting, The Whole Truth (1958) is an okay thriller adapted from what originally was a 1955 BBC television play by Philip Mackie, which then became a West End stage play three months later. Mackie’s film work was mostly limited to the Merton Park’s enjoyable Edgar Wallace series of short, unpretentious features, but his later work for British television, including The Caesars (1968) and Raffles (1975-77) is well regarded.
The movie is set along the French Riviera, but except for some second unit work, was filmed in England with overemphatically dressed studio interiors and expansive but not very French-looking backlot streets.
Movie producer Max Poulton (Stewart Granger) is shooting a film there, a troubled production on account of its temperamental Italian star, Gina Bertini (Gianna Maria Canale). Estranged from his Wyoming-born American wife, Carol (Donna Reed), Max had an affair with the fiery Italian, but broke it off when Carol unexpectedly returned to him, he keeping the affair a secret from her.
At a big party at their villa, Max is visited by Scotland Yard Inspector Carliss (George Sanders), who discreetly informs Max that Gina has been murdered. He questions Max about his relationship with the actress, Max is obviously evasive, and as soon as Carliss departs Max rushes over to Gina’s cliffside home to remove any incriminating personal belongings (clothes, toiletries, etc.) that he’d left behind. Returning to the party, however, Max is shocked to find Gina alive and well, though apparently anxious to spill the beans about her affair to everyone there. Max hustles Gina from the party, driving her back to the same house Max had just returned from. He leaves Gina in the car while he opens up the house and turns on the lights, returning to find Gina really dead this time, stabbed in the back.
(This moment is staged with incredible ineptitude. When Max opens the car door, Gina drops to the ground, landing face-down on the driveway with the knife sticking out of her back. Dumb-dumb Max turns her over, onto her back where the knife is protruding, and from the camera angle the knife handle only pushes deeper into her back. Why such an obvious error in judgement was left in the film is baffling.)
Soon, Max is arrested by French authorities led by Inspector Simon (Michael Shillo), Max insisting the murderer must be this man Carliss, clearly masquerading as a police inspector. The police have no trouble locating Carliss, who freely admits to visiting Max earlier—to beg him to break off his affair with Gina, his murdered wife. Or so he says.
John and James Woolf’s Romulus Films, which produced The Whole Truth, was a classy British company whose great successes include The African Queen, Beat the Devil, I Am a Camera, Richard III, Room at the Top, The Pumpkin Eater, and King Rat. James Woolf died in 1966, but brother John continued on with Oliver! and The Day of the Jackal, among others, after which he spent most of the remainder of his career in television.
The Whole Truth straddles the middle ground between a higher-end B-picture and lower-end A. Granger, Reed, and Sanders had been major Hollywood stars earlier in the decade, but fading quickly by the time this was released. The screenplay by American crime novelist and movie writer John Latimer (Night Has a Thousand Eyes) has crisp dialogue among the three principals, offering a mild surprise or two, but is in no way exceptional. Indeed, the film rather resembles Hammer Films’ much lower-budgeted Diabolique-esque thrillers that soon followed, most written by Jimmy Sangster. The best of those films are superior to The Whole Truth, though this is reasonably good.
Besides the badly staged murder of Gina, the film has other minor problems. The movie production barely figures into the plot and soon becomes incidental; it’s mostly window dressing, as is its French Riviera setting, which is never convincing anyway. Reed’s dutiful wife exhibits no anger at all upon learning of her husband’s affair. She supports him throughout the police investigation and believes right away his claims of being framed by Carliss, but it isn’t believable that she’d never even complain about the affair, that his contriteness is more than enough to satisfy whatever ill-feelings she’s keeping to herself. Indeed, the wrap-up suggests Max’s wandering eye is incorrigible, even lovable. I generally don’t bother pointing out such dated depictions of marital relations, but with Reed’s character one can really tell this is a story written by a man.
Reed herself seemed resigned to such parts, immediately following this with her long-running The Donna Reed Show, again playing the dutiful wife and mother, a persona in which she excelled, even though her acting chops occasionally proved she could do so much more. Granger is okay but his character unsympathetic; Sanders is more interesting, playing a clever murderer but with a kind of low self-esteem that was unusual for the screen’s reigning cad.
Photographed in black-and-white 1.66:1 widescreen by Wilkie Cooper, the transfer seems sourced from the original negative, though the crispness of the image varies considerably from shot-to-shot, perhaps a sign that the film had a fairly short shooting schedule, likely less than 30 days. The 1.0 mono LPCM audio is fine, and supported by optional English subtitles. Region “B” encoded.
Supplements consist of an audio commentary track by Kevin Lyons and Jonathan Rigby; a 19-minute appreciation by critic Robert Shail; a BEHP archival interview with assistant director Ronald Spencer recorded in 1991 that effectively serves as a second commentary track as it runs in tandem with the film for its entire length; a trailer; and image gallery round out the disc extras.
For this review, we received a check disc only. The booklet packaged with the final release includes a new essay by Barry Forshaw; Columbia’s campaign book; quotes from contemporary reviews; and archival interviews with Sanders and Canale.
Worth seeing though nothing special, The Whole Truth isn’t much more than a decent, fairly entertaining time-killer. Nothing innovative or particularly memorable, but not bad.
- Stuart Galbraith IV