The_Golden_Salamander

http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/The_Golden_Salamander/70147295?trkid=496624

A film that has a lot to offer,and for some unknown reason there has not been too many takers.. Or maybe I should say viewers A very good script that offers the cast to really show their skills.. And in the case Anouk Aimee beauty as well Trevor Howard is well fitted for his role,and at times you se...read moree a little Indiana Jones in her character... Story has a few nice twists to it,and there is enough action,and suspense to hold you interest quite well.. The car ride down the mountain in the storm will have you checking your seat belt... Supporting cast is as good as the film is,and no review is complete without honoring them Have two that I thought were especially good... Wilfred Hyde-White in a odd role for him,and Herbert Lom for his journeyman performance in his role.. A film that really is vastly unappreciated.. Mores the shame

This movie was done very well. The acting, dialog,and senary was masterful. It doesnt deliver the heart stopping thrills of an Alfred Hichcock movie, But certainly shares a lot of his influence. This movie seems under rated to me. I think it deserves 3.5 stars. And should remain in the Clas...read moresics Genre. And I consider myself a tough critic.

There was a time when the story was more important than the special effects, and this film is a good representative of that era. There are a number of reasons to see this one. I hesitate to make comparisons to Casablanca, but... The plot has enough twists and turns to keep it interesting. There are ...read morea host of sinister characters, and a debonair hero. The cozy restaurant, run by French expatriots, is not as glamorous as Ricks Cafe Americain, but it has plenty of atmosphere, helped along by a talented pianist. Not the least of the lot, there is the gorgeous leading lady, Anouk Aimee. At the tender age of 18, this was her first significant role, years before she made it big in A Man and a Woman. Walter Rilla does an excellent job as the unflappable villain, as does Herbert Lom in the role of his henchman. You might recognize the piano player, Wilfred Hyde-White, as one of the costars of My Fair Lady. Trevor Howards performance, so natural and unaffected, as the principled archaeologist David Redfern, is what really holds this movie together, as he slowly comes to terms with the ethics of a difficult situation. It is the title subject, the golden salamander, which points the way. Look for wonderful contrast and definition in the black and white cinematography, and an engaging score by little-known English composer William Alwyn. 3.5 stars my scale, an official 3. 22 Apr11

Golden Salamander (film) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search Golden Salamander




Directed by Ronald Neame

Produced by Alexander Galperson

Written by Victor Canning (novel and screenplay)

Ronald Neame

Lesley Storm

Starring Trevor Howard

Anouk Aimée

Herbert Lom

Release date(s) 1 September 1950

Running time 87 min.

Country United Kingdom

Language English



Golden Salamander is a 1950 adventure film directed by Ronald Neame and starring Trevor Howard as an archaeologist in North Africa who runs afoul of a crime sydicate. It won an award at the 1950 Locarno International Film Festival.[1] It is based on Victor Canning's novel The Golden Salamander, itself based on the Peter Prudden book The Night That Came.



[edit] CastTrevor Howard as David Redfern

Anouk Aimée as Anna (as Anouk)

Herbert Lom as Rankl

Walter Rilla as Serafis

Miles Malleson as Douvet

Jacques Sernas as Max

Wilfrid Hyde-White as Agno

Peter Copley as Aribi

Marcel Poncin as Dommic

Kathleen Boutall as Mme. Guillard

Eugene Deckers as Police Chief

Percy Walsh as Guillard

Sybille Binder as Mme. Labree

[edit] References1.^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043594/awards

[edit] External linksGolden Salamander at the Internet Movie Database
 
Films directed by Ronald Neame




1940s Take My Life (1947)



1950s Golden Salamander (1950) ·The Card (1952) ·The Million Pound Note (1954) ·The Man Who Never Was (1956) ·The Seventh Sin (1957) ·Windom's Way (1957) ·The Horse's Mouth (1958)



1960s Tunes of Glory (1960) ·Escape from Zahrain (1962) ·I Could Go On Singing (1963) ·The Chalk Garden (1964) ·Mister Moses (1965) ·A Man Could Get Killed (1966) ·Gambit (1966) ·Prudence and the Pill (1968) ·The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)



1970s Scrooge (1970) ·The Poseidon Adventure (1972) ·The Odessa File (1974) ·Meteor (1979)



1980s Hopscotch (1980) ·First Monday in October (1981) ·Foreign Body (1986)

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F00E1DD1138E13BBC4C51DFB566838A649EDE
Movie Review


The Golden Salamander (1950)

March 24, 1951

THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; 'Golden Salamander,' a British Adventure Film, Is New Bill at Little Carnegie At the Criterion
The Britishers' taste for the exotic in their romantic adventure yarns is quite evident in "Golden Salamander," which came to the Little Carnegie yesterday. And this liberal indulgence of preference is most fortunate in this case, for the authentic Tunisian backgrounds and atmosphere of this film are its best points—these and a pretty young lady who now goes by the name of Anouk.




Miss Anouk (if that is how we should call her) is a wistful but strong and pliant girl who recently made a quite impressive appearance in "The Lovers of Verona," a French film. And now, as a French girl residing in a somewhat remote Tunisian town where things happen during the course of this picture, she continues to draw attention to herself. A sweet face; a youthful, vital figure and a reserved but magnetic sort of charm seem to be more in her favor just now than a striking ability to act.



However, in this instance, she is fortunately given little to do except blend into the atmosphere of mystery and string along with a nice adventure tale. This tale, based up on a lusty novel by Victor Canning, who helped prepare the script, is a customary lot of hokus-pokus in the romantic British vein. An archaeologist from the British Museum arrives in this small Tunisian town to pack up some relics for shipment and gets caught in a gun-running plot. He also gets caught in the soft toils of the exiled French girl's adhesive love—and between the two preoccupations, he has himself quite a busy time.

As the scientist, Trevor Howard delivers his usual sincere and forceful job, demonstrating as much evolution into a bold adventurer as the script will allow. Under Ronald Neame's easy-going direction, he emerges from his academic calm rather abruptly but with absolute assurance once the melodramatic heat is turned on. Herbert Lom is extravagantly evil as the gunman of the gun-running gang and Walter Rilla is exquisitely silky as the lord of a Moorish villa and boss of the mob. A vast lot of outdoor action within the crowded streets of a Tunisian town and in the midst of a noisy native boar-hunt (for the climax) brings color to the film. The atmosphere is even augmented by a wistful pianist who plays dreamy bar-room tunes.






GOLDEN SALAMANDER; screen play by Lesley Storm, Victor Canning and Ronald Neame, from the novel of the same name by Mr. Canning; directed by Mr. Neame and presented by J. Arthur Rank; released by Eagle Lion Classics. At the Little Carnegie.

David . . . . . Trevor Howard

Anna . . . . . Anouk

Rankl . . . . . Herbert Lom

Douvet . . . . . Miles Malleson

Serafis . . . . . Walter Rilla

Max . . . . . Jacques Sernas

Agno . . . . . Wilfred Hyde-White

Aribi . . . . . Peter Copley

French Chief of Police . . . . . Eugene Deckers

http://www.tcm.turner.com/this-month/article/205141%7C0/The-Golden-Salamander.html
The Golden SalamanderAn archaeologist stumbles into the territory of an evil crime syndicate and struggles to set things right in The Golden Salamander (1950). Filmed on location in Tunisia, this routine action adventure was an unusual choice for Trevor Howard to make following his critically acclaimed performance in Carol Reed's The Third Man but part of the lure may have been the exotic location. Howard was an actor with wanderlust and loved visiting other countries, especially when he was being paid for it.




The Golden Salamander was the first major film production directed by cinematographer/screenwriter Ronald Neame; he had previously directed a low-budget crime thriller in 1947 entitled Take My Life. When Neame first offered the film to Howard, he turned it down but then changed his mind and was soon delighted to be playing opposite French actress Anouk Aimee, who was the love interest. Aimee was at the very beginning of her film career and had just attracted international attention for her role in Andre Cayatte's Les Amants de Verone (1949). During the filming Howard and Aimee became very close, resulting in rumors of an affair but no evidence exists that it did, much to the relief of Howard's wife, who was genuinely concerned for awhile that the picture might ultimately cause the breakup of her marriage.

The Golden Salamander was nothing more than a standard genre thriller but it afforded some comical moments during filming. "One of the best scenes on location was, Neame recalls (in Trevor Howard: A Gentleman and a Player by Vivienne Knight), unfortunately not for the picture. Shooting was taking place in an open market of a native village which was filthy, squalid and filled with Arabs buying and selling fly-covered local produce: a nice natural scene with thousands of free extras. The script called for Trevor Howard to work his way through the crowd in the market place. The camera was set up, creating a stir in itself since none of the locals had ever seen one before. Then came a loud hailer emitting interpreted pleas to the crowd to behave quite normally and naturally, just as though the camera wasn't there and, this above all, "Please don't look at the camera." It was a crane shot and there could be no rehearsal. It was all set. Ronnie Neame lifted his megaphone, shouted "Action!" and all hell was let loose: the Arabs started to fight, stalls were knocked over and a number of participants were knocked out. In the middle of it all Trevor Howard strugged with shock, amazement and other people. When, with some difficulty, a degree of order was restored and Arab had stopped tearing into Arab, it transpired that the word 'action' had triggered off something they had either seen in films, or thought should happen in films: action equalled fighting. But Ronnie Neame found out that, once they got the hang of it, many of the voluntary extras were quite good. So, up to a point, was the film."


Typical of the critical reviews that The Golden Salamander received upon its theatrical release is this one by Bosley Crowther in The New York Times: "The Britishers' taste for the exotic in their romantic adventure yarns is quite evident in "Golden Salamander," which came to the Little Carnegie yesterday. And this liberal indulgence of preference is most fortunate in this case, for the authentic Tunisian backgrounds and atmosphere of this film are its best points-these and a pretty young lady who now goes by the name of Anouk...As the scientist, Trevor Howard delivers his usual sincere and forceful job, demonstrating as much evolution into a bold adventurer as the script will allow. Under Ronald Neame's easy-going direction, he emerges from his academic calm rather abruptly but with absolute assurance once the melodramatic heat is turned on. Herbert Lom is extravagantly evil as the gunman of the gun-running gang and Walter Rilla is exquisitely silky as the lord of a Moorish villa and boss of the mob. A vast lot of outdoor action within the crowded streets of a Tunisian town and in the midst of a noisy native boar-hunt (for the climax) brings color to the film. The atmosphere is even augmented by a wistful pianist who plays dreamy bar-room tunes."




Producer: Alexander Galperson

Director: Ronald Neame

Screenplay: Lesley Storm, Victor Canning, Ronald Neame

Cinematography: Oswald Morris

Art Direction:

Music: William Alwyn

Film Editing: Jack Harris

Cast: Trevor Howard (David Redfern), Anouk (Anna), Herbert Lom (Rankl), Walter Rilla (Serafis), Miles Malleson (Douvet), Jacques Sernas (Max), Wilfrid Hyde-White (Agno), Peter Copley (Aribi), Marcel Poncin (Dommic), Kathleen Boutall (Mme. Guillard)

BW-94m.



by Jeff Stafford