Artist The Fallen Idol
The last of director Carol Reed’s three collaborations with novelist Graham Greene, The Fallen Idol is a near-masterpiece that works a simple suspense story into a resonant study of how children mature by making painful mistakes. Bobby Henrey stars as a diplomat’s child whose friendship with butler Ralph Richardson is shaken when he first stumbles into Richardson’s clandestine lunch date with a strange woman (Michèle Morgan) and later witnesses Richardson getting into a violent argument with his wife (Sonia Dresdel) that ends with her dead at the bottom of the stairs. It would be a mistake to call the film a story about lost innocence, however, because it’s unclear whether Henrey is all that sweet to being with.
Updated 03/11/2010
