Fri 2 Jul 2021
A Movie Review by David Friend: GRAND NATIONAL NIGHT (1953).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[4] Comments
GRAND NATIONAL NIGHT. Renown Pictures, UK, 1953; Allied Artists, US, 1955, as Wicked Wife. Nigel Patrick, Moira Lister, Beatrice Campbell, Betty Ann Davies, Michael Hordern, Noel Purcell, Leslie Mitchell. Director: Bob McNaught.
There are certain sub-genres of the crime drama which I will diligently seek out. Heist films, prison escape movies and the murder story in which we see who did it and how. 1920s crime fiction writer R. Austin Freeman invented the form and called it the ‘inverted detective story’. Columbo, of course, is the most famous example of this format on television while, in film, we have Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder. They’re not so much whodunits as will-he-get-away-with-its? and are often headily suspenseful.
This thriller from Nettlefold Studios is slightly different. Racehorse trainer Gerald Coates (played by the always excellent Nigel Patrick) doesn’t intend to kill his drunken, mean-spirited wife Babs (Moira Lister). As an accident, therefore, there is no careful preparation and cool-headed problem-solving of the kind Ray Milland or Jack Cassidy had to deal with.
In truth, this decision makes the story less dramatic, but it also makes for an interesting change of pace, and ensures the protagonist has our sympathy. It could even be argued that he is the true victim of the piece as the viewers will surely wish they could kill Babs themselves.
The film was previously a radio serial on the BBC and, originally, a stage play by Dorothy and Campbell Christie. Its stage-bound origins are certainly obvious, as most of the action takes place in one large room at the Coates’ country estate. Indeed, many such stories, in my experience, do originate on stage. (There seems to be something about watching people die at a very close distance that engages theatre audiences like little else.)
In Grand National Night there are a few scattered instances in which we go beyond those walls – we visit Aintree racecourse, for instance, there’s an all-too-brief moment when Coates tries to evade the police on horseback, and a dreamily atmospheric flashback near the end.
The flashback, in particular, is required as, for most of the film, we are not sure just what has become of the dead wife. Indeed, it appears for a time as though she is still alive, as that is initially what Coates leads everyone to believe. Things do not seem any clearer when Babs is revealed to have died in nearby Liverpool. Coates tries to keep a diligent detective – played by the legendary Sir Michael Hordern – from discovering that Babs had, in fact, returned to the house before her death.
It is a shame that Nigel Patrick didn’t get more starring roles as he was clearly a very dependable actor. He was often cast as suave gentlemen, but I also caught him as a comically hyperactive spiv in 1948’s tonally inconsistent Noose (avoid it).
Also magnificent was Colin Gordon, a regular face on film and later television, who appears here in an unexpectedly key role. A neat bit of business, involving the two, wraps everything up neatly, making Grand National Night a pleasant and undemanding B-film.
Rating: ***
July 2nd, 2021 at 7:58 pm
Patrick seemed to gravitate with unusual ease from competent charming policemen as in SAPPHIRE to absolute rotters to the roguish type in THE LEAGUE OF GENTELMEN. He was a leading man for most of the early fifties and later a solid character actor, never quite the international star of a Jack Hawkins on John Mills, but a key player in British cinema. At times it feels as if half the British films of the era star him John Bentley, Michael Craig, Robert Beatty, Donald Sinden, or Kenneth More.
Radio and television serials accounted for a good deal of the best British cinema of the period from SF (Nigel Kneale particularly) to mystery and suspense (Francis Durbridge with Paul Temple and others, Ernest Dudley) though it never quite got traction on the American airways, perhaps because economic conditions in Post War Britain meant television was a bit longer coming to everyone’s home.
July 3rd, 2021 at 7:50 am
I’ve mentioned Nigel Patrick here before, in my review of NOOSE (1948)and he was quite effective as “Mr Know-It-All” in TRIO.
July 4th, 2021 at 4:21 pm
Hi! How are You? Me good I think, Mr Nigel Patrick was very nasty and narcissistic in the movie with Jack Palance and Anita Ekberg,’The Man Inside’. At IMDB the rating is only 5.8, for me, it is a very solid 8, very good movie and by the way Ms Ekberg was extremely stunning and mesmerizing in this movie, and She was one of the most beautiful Woman to pass through the movie industry, but later on, with Her long illness, She was still beautiful, but We could see that Her health was not good. Thanks for reading and take care and God bless.
P.S. I have high respect for Mr Palance and Ms Ekberg and Mr Patrick, always love Mr Palance.
July 5th, 2021 at 12:13 am
The Man Inside is based on the M. E. Chaber novel with Jack Palance as the Milo March role.