I've read a few Father Brown stories in my day, but the 1954 adaptation of his first, retitled The Detective in the U.K. is more entertaining than I remember them being. Alec Guinness is super charming in the role of the detective priest who is as concerned with recovering a stolen artifact as he is with saving the soul of the gentleman thief (Peter Finch) who did it. Father Brown keeps surprising at every turn, and updated to the film's era, he seems a much more urban figure than in Chesterton's tales. "The Blue Cross" extended to feature length, there are some incidents that could be jettisoned, but frankly, it's all so much quirky fun that I probably wouldn't cut a whole lot out of it. When it introduces characters, it means to give them something to do, and usually not the thing you expect them to. The mystery is enlivened by all sorts of jokes, but also by Father Brown's unusual motivation, not to catch and punish the criminal, but to reform him. His humanism trumps his fidelity to the Catholic Church. Makes me wish Guinness had starred in a NUMBER of these.
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Sien
https://ok.ru/video/1150145137332Siskoid
I've read a few Father Brown stories in my day, but the 1954 adaptation of his first, retitled The Detective in the U.K. is more entertaining than I remember them being. Alec Guinness is super charming in the role of the detective priest who is as concerned with recovering a stolen artifact as he is with saving the soul of the gentleman thief (Peter Finch) who did it. Father Brown keeps surprising at every turn, and updated to the film's era, he seems a much more urban figure than in Chesterton's tales. "The Blue Cross" extended to feature length, there are some incidents that could be jettisoned, but frankly, it's all so much quirky fun that I probably wouldn't cut a whole lot out of it. When it introduces characters, it means to give them something to do, and usually not the thing you expect them to. The mystery is enlivened by all sorts of jokes, but also by Father Brown's unusual motivation, not to catch and punish the criminal, but to reform him. His humanism trumps his fidelity to the Catholic Church. Makes me wish Guinness had starred in a NUMBER of these.ClassicLady
aka "The Detectives" as released in the USA.