The Upturned Glass

Production: Sydney Box. Director Lawrence Huntington; Producer Sydney Box, James Mason; Screenplay J.P. Monaghan, Pamela Kellino; Camera Reginald Wyer; Editor Alan Osbiston; Music Bernard Stevens; Art Director Andrew Mazzer
Crew: (B&W) Extract of a review from 1947. Running time: 86 MIN.
With: James Mason Rosamund John Pamela Kellino Jane Hylton Ann Stephens Henry Oscar

Publish date: 2024-10-12

Some will condemn the interminable narrative - even though it's admirably spoken through clenched teeth by James Mason.

Some will condemn the interminable narrative – even though it’s admirably spoken through clenched teeth by James Mason.

Some will dislike the unnecessary flashbacks and the actual repetition of one incident. Many will squirm at two operations performed on children, sparing the audience nothing. Michael, a brilliant young surgeon, falls in love with Emma (Rosamund John), whose child he has saved from total blindness. The husband is abroad and her sheltered life is disturbed only by a jealous, widowed sister-in-law, Kate (Pamela Kellino). But Emma decides she cannot endanger the child’s future nor shirk her responsibilities to her husband, and she and Michael agree to say goodbye.

Then with tragic suddenness Michael learns that Emma is dead, having fallen from a high window in her country house. Suspicious or foul play, his notions are confirmed at the inquest, and he realizes that Kate has killed her sister-in-law. He decides to murder Kate, begins an affair with her, eventually takes her to the house and the very room where Emma was killed and murders Kate in a similar manner, throwing her from the window.

That’s the skeleton of the story and most of it is related by Michael to a class of students as the case history of an anonymous surgeon.

The part has been tailored to fit Mason, and he gives it complete credibility. John has never looked better nor played better, and Kellino is the perfect shrew.