The Clouded Yellow (1951)

A different way of telling a story

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

THE CLOUDED YELLOW is nothing more than a re-staging of Hitch's THE 39 STEPS, although not without merit for this thriller genre of film-making. What I particularly liked about it is how deceptive it starts off: former secret agent Trevor Howard gets a job cataloguing butterflies for some eccentric old country bumpkin, before falling in love with the man's fragile niece (the ubiquitous Jean Simmons) and getting involved in a murder plot.The plot then becomes a chase narrative that takes in numerous locations around the UK: Newcastle, the Lake District, Liverpool, to name but three. I can't remember other British thrillers featuring so many different locations so this must have had a bigger budget than usual for the genre. The story is familiar but things don't get too convoluted, and the suspense remains strong from halfway through until the very end, which is highly satisfying.The cast is full of familiar faces with Andre Morell as the typically gruff secret service chief and Kenneth More as the likable agent giving chase. There are cameos for the ever-present likes of Richard Wattis and Sam Kydd, Geoffrey Keen plays a cop, and Maxwell Reed (Mr Joan Collins) a suave and sinister type. Howard and Simmons aren't my favourite of stars but they acquit themselves well with the material here and THE CLOUDED YELLOW as a whole is a watchable British thriller.

It's more than possible than David Cornwell saw this film and kept the idea of a British secret agent getting fired and then taking a dead-end job in mind when he came to write The Spy Who Came In From The Cold a good decade later. Naturally it's not quite straightforward plagiarism, for one thing Trevor Howard really is fired whereas Richard Burton was only pretending; against that both ex-spies take similar jobs, Howard in a private house and Burton in a left-wing private library. That's still not as referential as the Clouded Yellow gets because next comes the one about Sonia Dresdel trying to send Jean Simmons mad - straight out of Gaslight and, for good measure, we get a touch of the 39 Steps as Howard and Simmons take it on the Jesse Owens with the Lake District standing in for Scotland. None of this would matter if there was even a spark of chemistry between Howard and Simmons, alas, a romance between Stalin and Mother Teresa would be more convincing. On the other hand nostalgia buffs will have a field day spotting the likes of Richard Pearson, Sam Kydd, Richard Wattis, Dandy Nichols, Geoffrey Keen and more all fretting and strutting their hour upon the stage. Poor Butterfly indeed.

Hitchcock was of the opinion that audiences aren't really interested in what puts protagonists into danger - only that they ARE in danger, and need to escape.This film proves Hitchcock was not 100% correct. Police believe Jean Simmons is guilty of a crime, when she plainly isn't. Trevor Howard decides their best course of action is to run for it. And so, the body of the movie has our charismatic pair dodging on and off trains, buses and coaches - jumping across rocks at the top of a waterfall - scrambling across dockyard roofs.All good exciting stuff - but I couldn't get out of my mind that it was all unnecessary. They should have stayed put.In other words, the MacGuffin wasn't strong enough.

Sort of paint-by-numbers Hitchcock. But still, it probably comes closer to the style of the master than any other pretender with the exception of "Niagara".Hitch always liked a story with some odd eccentricities to the plot. This story has a butterfly collector, a taxidermist, and some shady Chinese Liverpudlians.But you can tell it's not Hitch easily enough. I believe it's the pacing, which never reaches a nail-biting pitch of intensity -- more like nail-drumming. I hope someone more astute than I will analyse precisely what marks this film as ultimately un-Hitchcock.The film's ending is very abrupt and more than a little unsatisfying, with the loose ends being tied up in a slip knot.An important element in many a great Hitchcock film is the pursuit sequence through imaginative locations. At least we are not disappointed in that respect. Besides Liverpool, our hero and heroine are hunted through night-time Newcastle which is made to resemble Vienna in an earlier Trevor Howard film, "The Third Man". Some of the best chase scenes take place among the hills, lakes, and waterfalls of the English Switzerland -- the Lake District, at that time in Cumberland (hence the name of the bus line) and Westmorland.Our beautiful English Swiss Miss, Jean Simmons, seems to be more voluptuous here than she would be later in her career, but perhaps I'm mistaken.The film's mysterious title refers to a variety of butterfly found in a meadow near the collector's house.