Rent Green for Danger (1946)

One of the best British murder mysteries. - Green for Danger review by AP

The Blu-Ray looks noticeably better than the DVD.

Alastair Sim is superb, supported by a strong cast.

Hospital Pass - Green for Danger review by griggs

A wartime murder mystery that splits neatly in two — and the join shows. The first half works better as social document than thriller: Green for Danger is most alive when anatomising its blackout-era hospital, with class tensions bleeding through professional civility like dye through gauze. Then it goes under the knife and re-emerges as a fairly routine police procedural: competent, but no longer dangerous.

Then Alastair Sim walks in, and the patient revives.

His Inspector Cockrill arrives like a man with all the time in the world, and every intention of using it at your expense — a proto-Columbo, circling suspects with theatrical vagueness until you half-expect “just one more thing…” to slip out. Trevor Howard and the rest of the hospital staff are accomplished but stiff beside him, unable to match his mischief. They don’t know how to play alongside someone happy to make them look like furniture.

Worth a watch, then — though the first half promises more than the second delivers. Consider yourself warned.

Droll Whodunnit. - Green for Danger review by Steve

Funny murder mystery set in a hospital in south-east England at the end of WWII, which features the unusual gimmick of doodlebugs constantly harassing the characters. When a patient dies during anaesthetic and the nurse who announces she knows who was responsible is stabbed to death, suspicion falls on the close knit theatre staff.

Everyone has a motive, and as often in whodunnits, it's fairly random who actually did the crime. The surgeon (Leo Genn) has had affairs with all the nurses, and now has his roving eye on sultry Sally Gray, the fiancée of the short tempered anaesthetist (Trevor Howard). Yes, the doctors are all men and the nurses are women.

The early scenes of comic intrigue get a huge boost on 37 minutes when Alastair Sim appears as the waspish and unorthodox Inspector from Scotland Yard. Sim gets an 'and presenting' credit, even though he had been in British films for over ten years. Still, it is his ungainly eccentricity that most makes the film such a pleasure.

There is lots of atmosphere in the pristine clinical areas, and the dubious figures in gowns and masks. Writer-director Sidney Gilliat keeps the finger of suspicion moving smoothly around the extremely well spoken medical staff. Though the mystery of the means of murder won't puzzle many for long, the abundant suspense makes this escapist fun.