The Fallen Idol (1948, Carol Reed) (Patreon)

82/100

Second viewing, last seen at BAMcinématek in 2004. Back then, I marveled—justifiably—at its singular perspective, which generates unbearable tension from a small child's natural misapprehension of messy adult behavior. Watching it again, though, I see that the potential homicide investigation pivots on an event that Phile simply doesn't witness, thereby triggering a dopamine hit based on my love for stories predicated on jumps to incorrect conclusions. That an adult, too, might mistakenly assume that Baines pushed his wife down the stairs seems to undermine Fallen Idol's theme, but I submit that Graham Greene meant to suggest a continuum between childhood naïveté and everyone's lifelong self-limited perception of the world. Which is why the film's ending, in which a penitent Phile tries to tell the truth (about something that, in what would be truly bleak irony if anyone paid attention, would negate the actual truth of what happened), sees every adult in the embassy brush him off as if he were a gnat buzzing annoyingly around their ears. I remain* slightly dissatisfied by the final 15 seconds, as Phile's mother returning, and Phile's apparently dazed reaction to same, doesn't hit me with any particular force...whereas I got choked up all over again by the sublimely mundane moment that sees Baines, at his lowest point, distractedly blow off a query about when some chairs should be delivered and then, seconds later, interrupt his police questioning to deal with the matter as he ordinarily would (cf. Jane at what should by rights be the end of Broadcast News: "Go any way you want. [long pause] But New York Avenue's faster"). Gotta wonder how many takes were required to land the paper plane precisely at Denis O'Dea's feet; nowadays, I'd assume that was digitally faked, it's so damn perfect. 

* Per an exchange in the nerd group not long after my first viewing. Quoted passage is from my friend Charles.

That said, don't you think it, um, falls just a hair short of true Greatness by refusing ultimately to embrace the darkness with which it flirts constantly (and which is at the heart—and behind the title—of the original story)?

Yeah, I thought it kind of copped out (so to speak) at the end there too. It wasn't the cheery tone [FEB 2024: Don't know how I got "cheery" from the ending, apart from Mom's greeting; kid moves down the stairs like a zombie] that disappointed so much as the fact that the mother's return didn't seem to have anything to do with what the film is actually about (= secrets and lies, corrosive nature of). It was like "And now, as a reward for enduring all that tension, here's a nice piece of cake." Though I must say I didn't necessarily feel tragedy was inevitable given the (admittedly morbid) comic interludes that popped up throughout—the maids looking for bloodstains on the staircase, that business with the cleaning and adjustment of the clock. Also, Mrs. Baines' behavior on the fatal night seemed a bit contrived—I was down with her skulking in the shadows for hours (thereby making every single shot, including those in which she's never glimpsed, feel creepily voyeuristic), but then she showed up in I-guess-it's-Phile's [FEB 2024: his name is pronounced as if it were just Phil] bedroom demanding to know the happy couple's whereabouts, and I was like Huh? I think you have a better idea than he does, and if you're gung-ho to catch them in flagrante just start opening doors. Thankfully, the movie recovered very quickly. But it did wind up with my lowest rating of awesomeness (82), whereas Hombre #3 is up there in the for-all-time 90s.