The Third Visitor

The Third Visitor moves along at a fair-paced clip , with acting honors to Sonia Dresdel – a singular actress whose unusual angular features and raven-like manner clutch and hold the camera's attention. (She played the hissable Mrs. Baines in The Fallen Idol (1948). One critic said that she had "a real power to take an audience by the wrist and give them the works. She had terrific personality and was terribly underused and misused. She would have been the Lady Macbeth of all Lady Macbeths.")

Mr. Richard Carling (Karel Stepanek), a superior sort of gent who had apparently graduated with honors from some Central European school of sneering, has various people, including an American gangster and a mysterious woman, call on him one evening at his isolated mansion. The next day a corpse, identified as his, is discovered, and a police detective (Drew Middleton), an Inspector Japp/Lestrade clone, complete with bushy mustache, rumpled raincoat and a carefully cultivated vagueness, goes nosing around to find the killer. He bumps heads with the sort of characters who inhabited British melodramas of the '40s and '50s, including the witch-like Steffy Millington (Sonia Dresdel) and her daffy hubby, Bill Millington (Colin Gordon), a couple with an unexpected supply of light-hearted Noel Cowardish banter; a sour-looking blonde, Vera Kurton (Eleanor Summerfield), and her pleasantly bland husband, Jack Kurton (Hubert Gregg), who exchange salvos rather than words; and a weirdo with the charisma of a talking fungus (Michael Martin Harvey). These folks scuttle in and out of view for an hour and a half, dropping clues for the industrious Inspector to scoop up and make sense of. Chaired skillfully by the incredible Maurice Elvey, who directed nearly 200 British films between 1913 and 1957, The Third Visitor is a remarkably satisfying little crime drama with a plot that twists and turns, keeping you guessing right to the neatly unexpected finale. Filmed in black and white, in the austere setting of post- war Britain (some of the scenery would seem to have been borrowed from the original stage play), it's a semi noir, wholly crafty 90- minute mystery masterpiece, all the more satisfying because I had never heard of it.

Police identify a body found at the home of Ricard Carling (Karel Stepanek) as that of Carling himself, though the face has been so badly mutilated it's hard to be sure. Before his death, two people came to visit him- his business partner, Jack Kurton (Hubert Gregg), whom Carling sent out of town on a fool's errand late at night, knowing that Kurton was tired, and James Oliver who is out for revenge as Carling had him framed for murder and put in jail. He picks up a heavy metal figurine from the fireplace mantel and swings it at Carling. That scene is out of view and a noise of a struggle is heard.

Steffy and Bill Millington (Sonia Dresdel and Colin Gordon), who seem to have no connection to Carling, receive their friend, Vera Kurton (Eleanor Summerfield), early in the morning. She is the wife of Jack Kurton, and arrives with a suitcase, begging them to tell Jack she spent the night with them, although she offers no explanation as to where she's been. Could she be the lady caller Carling expected? Is that why Carling sent her husband on the fool's errand?

Carling received information while Kurton was still with him that a person named Hewson is now out of the asylum in France. The doctor who committed him had some crooked deal with Carling. Could Hewson have returned for revenge?

The Third Visitor has a rather intriguing storyline and idea but it's mired by too much chitter chatter and confusion. Great performances, especially by Dresdel, and the major twist at the end elevates this a little - the plot needed more focus and waffling.

Prior to seeing this movie, I had never heard of Sonia Dresdel. But my first glimpse of her rousting her frazzled husband out of bed was enough to hook me. It only only goes to show that attractiveness is as much a matter of attitude as physical charm.

She's certainly one of most eccentric beauties I've ever come across. Her Wiki entry states her great successes were on the stage and I can see why. Her voice, appearance and manner, alternately languid and chipper, are unique.

Indeed, the tacked on ending only worked to the extent it did because she had already built such a rapport with this viewer that he was willing to swallow it.

Suave supercilious Carling (Karel Stepanek) receives several callers to his isolated house, all of whom hold a grudge against him. Next morning a corpse is found, and later identified as his by one of the visitors.

An atmospheric thriller with Gothic overtones, including a villain living in an old dark house complete with underground passages, whose architect he attempted to bury alive, THE THIRD VISITOR is one of two films made in succession by veteran director Maurice Elvey for producer Ernest Gartside, the other being the slightly better known THE LATE EDWINA BLACK. It opens vividly with the electrifying music over the title credits (an unacknowledged straight lift of the first movement coda of Bruckner's 9th symphony) culminating in a striking shot of a woman, manacled against a wall with an unseen person on the verge of firing at her, as the legend WHO WAS THE THIRD VISITOR? is emblazoned across the screen. Though there is a great deal of dialogue the actors and the occasional directorial flourish such as this ensure that tedium is kept firmly at bay. Typically spirited performances ensue from Sonia Dresdel (in a rare sympathetic and at times light-hearted role) and Eleanor Summerfield as two wives who clearly don't play second fiddle to their respective husbands (Colin Gordon and Hubert Gregg), their only real match being Guy Middleton's Inspector. Film's main flaw is the risible casting of John Slater as a New York gangster.

It's seldom that Bruckner's music has been used in films, the only other instance I know of is Visconti's "Senso" 1954 three years after this one, but it certainly gives a certain mood from the start of tension and doom. Although an atrocious murder is committed from the start, you even see it being done and by whom, there is no question about it, the development seems rather innocent and harmless, as there are mainly only discussions and arguments and roundabouts to divert the attention, and even the inspectors get impatient by the fooling around. But it's worth waiting for the end. You have to learn what that mishandled lady in the introduction was all about and whatever it had to do with the atrocious murder. Although nothing seems to make any sense and add up, it does so in the end after all and with a vengeance. It's a clever thriller, Sonia Dresdel keeps the suspense up all the way by most of all her sparkling dialogue, and there is a mystery figure as well, the strangely pathetic Hewson (Michael Martin Harvey), whom everyone has some apprehension of, who maybe knows too much and isn't as mad as he seems. Finally the war also plays an important part, and that's where the trauma makes a final entrance concluding this strange play of destiny and vengeance.