The strange story of William Freeze-Green - one of the earliest designers and patentees of a working Cine Camera. Was he the man who first perfected the moving picture camera or to establish the beginnings of colour cine photography...will we ever truly know? This fellow was so obsessed with his photographic innovations that he overlooked many details of his daily life. Did others take advantage of his absent-minded, blinkered lifestyle or was he just too obsessed to notice? Robert Donat is terrific as Mr Freeze-Green (but then, he's terrific as anyone he plays!) Wonderful Award winner, Maria Schell gives her usual warm performance as one of his, mostly penniless, long-suffering wives and mother of his children. Then there are all those curious guest roles by an endless list of top line British performers - too many to name here.
While this film is a marvellous and tragic historical character study, it can also be at times, curiously aloof in some aspects. It's longer than it needed to be and the flashback style of telling its story can be slightly confusing (or might this be attributed to the re-release editing?) The muted British Technicolor creates a nice period atmosphere - showing the wonderful sets & impeccable cinematography of Jack Cardiff to their best advantage. For followers of the many performers or those with an interest in the early developmental history of motion Pictures, this is worthy of some study. Not great but very good and the ending leaves the viewer with a high degree of sympathy.
Note: The original Cinema running time was 118mins - DVD release runs approx: 104mins
While this film is a marvellous and tragic historical character study, it can also be at times, curiously aloof in some aspects. It's longer than it needed to be and the flashback style of telling its story can be slightly confusing (or might this be attributed to the re-release editing?) The muted British Technicolor creates a nice period atmosphere - showing the wonderful sets & impeccable cinematography of Jack Cardiff to their best advantage. For followers of the many performers or those with an interest in the early developmental history of motion Pictures, this is worthy of some study. Not great but very good and the ending leaves the viewer with a high degree of sympathy.
Note: The original Cinema running time was 118mins - DVD release runs approx: 104mins