British Imports

The Green Scarf (Associated Artists) introduces a detective named Maitre De-liot (Michael Redgrave), who is a sort of cross between Hercule Poirot and Father Brown, with a dash of old man Karamazov thrown in. Deliot is a French lawyer, an ancient case-horse just about ready for pasture. A bachelor, from the bees in his bonnet to the flies on his vest, he is grimy, grouchy, up to his knees in litter, and almost down to his belt in beard.

In The Green Scarf Delict's client (Kieron Moore), charged with murder, is blind and deaf, and refuses to defend himself. To Deliot, of course, such problems are merely salt to his solitary porridge. After one of those sketchy investigations that create almost as much mystery as they resolve, he produces, in a clever courtroom scene, the full portrait of the crime, including the face of the killer. Actor Redgrave is the making of the show, though at times he almost fidgets it away. Kieron Moore, Leo Genn and Jane Henderson are excellent. It's a nice little puzzler, in a squirrely sort of way.

The Good Die Young (Romulus; United Artists) is just a little ricochet romance, U.S. style. Three men in a pub (Richard Basehart, John Ireland, Stanley Baker), all decent fellows but down on their luck, meet a fourth (Laurence Harvey), who persuades them to steal a shipment of old bank notes from a mail truck. When the job is done, the villain slaughters all three of his accomplices, but in the last reel the meat wagon comes around for him, too. The playing is brisk, but the story takes too long to untangle itself. The good die somewhat too old.

The Purple Plain (J. Arthur Rank; United Artists) has something new and exotic to recommend it: a stunning 21-year-old Burmese beauty named Win Min Than, which means "brilliant a thousandfold." When she shimmers into focus in a screen-size closeup with a tremulous smile on her lips, sympathetic vibrations start humming around the movie house. They keep on humming as the girl with the almond-shaped eyes and trim little figure speaks the precise and attractively British English that she learned at an Irish convent in Rangoon. Her role in the movie (her first) is largely therapeutic. A crack fighter pilot (Gregory Peck) seems determined to crash his plane and kill himself in a foolhardy maneuver against the Japanese. He has gone "round the bend" since his bride was killed on their wedding night. But once he meets Win, he realizes that "it is no good to die inside," and proves his will to live after a crash landing. Unfortunately, the tired script and plodding direction need even more than brilliance a thousandfold.

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