Father Brown (1954)
Directed by Robert Hamer

Film Review

G. K. Chesterton's famous fictional priest Father Brown was a gift of a role for Alec Guinness, who brings the appropriate mix of godliness, mischievousness and humane fallibility to his portrayal in Robert Hamer's amiable adaptation of Chesterton's short story The Blue Cross, the first of the Father Brown stories, initially published in 1910.  Although his best work was behind him - Ealing's It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) and Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) are two classics of British cinema - Hamer was still a more than capable filmmaker, able to get the best from his performers and wring as much drama and humour from a script as decency and good taste would permit.  Apparently targeted at a family audience, The Detective is as much fun for adults as it is for children, its main pleasure being the ensemble of great British actors it ropes in for our amusement.

Complementing Alec Guinness's Father Brown is a likeably villainous Peter Finch who, as a supreme master-of-disguise, always seems to end up looking like Peter Finch.  Sid James shows up briefly to chauffeur a seductive-as-ever Joan Greenwood between scenes (nice work if you can get it), Cecil Parker gives a humorous turn as the stressed out bishop Father Brown appears determined to send to an early grave, Bernard Lee is the inspector whose talents do not, evidently, involve catching master criminals and Gérard Oury (long before he became one of France's most successful filmmakers) is even more useless as Lee's French counterpart.  Best of the bunch is Ernest Thesiger, who turns in a pleasing cameo as a dusty old French nobleman with a penchant for breaking spectacles.  Hamer went on to direct Guinness in two more films - The Scapegoat (1959) and To Paris, with Love (1955) - before his alcohol addiction brought his career to a tragically premature end.

Film Synopsis

Undeterred by a tip-off from the police that a French master-criminal, Gustave Flambeau, intends stealing a cross belonging to Saint Augustine, Father Ignatius Brown decides to carry the holy relic to Rome on his person.  On the way, he befriends another priest, who turns out to be none other than Flambeau.  Once Flambeau has managed to get away with the cross, Father Brown contrives a plan with his friend Lady Warren to bring the criminal out into the open.  His motive for doing so is not to see Flambeau put behind bars, but to save his soul.  Unfortunately, Flambeau prove to be a wilier adversary than he had supposed and Lady Warren's antique chess set is stolen right under his nose...