The List of Adrian Messenger (1963)

THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER is an incredibly inventive murder mystery/thriller, made by John Huston and shot on his estate in Ireland. It's quite unlike any other film I've watched, the stark black-and-white shooting style accompanying the action quite nicely. It's one of those films where the mystery is deliciously ambiguous until around the halfway mark.I found the early scenes to be the best part of the film as you have no idea what's going to happen next. Evil Kirk Douglas proves a master of disguise as he goes around bumping people off and making it look like they were killed in accidents. George C. Scott is a delight as the amateur detective who gets drawn into the proceedings and Jacques Roux is even better as the warm-hearted Frenchman and Watson character.Eventually the story begins to make sense but it continues to engage anyway thanks to the strong performances. The latter half of the story gets bogged down a bit in the fox hunting scenes but it still picks up for a climax tying it all together nicely. One of the most interesting things about the production are the elaborate disguises worn by characters; the make-up which includes face masks and even false eyes is really something special. I found most of the celebrity cameos to be a bit of a distraction, but all of the winking and grinning at the end is irresistible.

John Huston's "The List of Adrian Messenger" has a quirky charm and an interesting story, but is derailed by a badly executed gimmick. The film is an oddity amongst Huston's films and was made after the heavy-going "Freud". This film is as light as a soufflé in comparison; "The List of Adrian Messenger" is Huston on holidays.Top-billed Kirk Douglas plays George Brougham, distant heir to the Bruttenholme estate in England who eliminates a list of people who know a secret that would prevent him claiming his inheritance. He also attempts to eliminate the members of his family who are next in line for the estate including his young nephew.George C. Scott is Anthony Gethryn, a policeman who solves the crime with the help of Raoul Le Berg played by Jacques Roux, a survivor of a plane crash caused by Brougham.Gethryn and Le Berg are virtually Huston's take on Holmes and Watson; together they track down the clues and the suspects. Although "The List of Adrian Messenger" is set in 1963 – when it was made – the whole production has a decidedly Victorian flavour.Scott turns in an engaging performance despite the odd slip with his otherwise passable British accent. Although Gethryn, like Sherlock Holmes seems a confirmed bachelor , Le Berg on the other hand begins an affair with the recently widowed wife of Adrian Messenger, played by the gorgeous Dana Wynter. However, "List" has a gimmick, central to the plot that does not come off. A number of well-known actors play characters in heavy disguise. Although Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum and Tony Curtis play cameos, it is Kirk Douglas who occupies a large amount of screen time in a number of disguises. Unfortunately, their features are rendered so immobile they look like victims of excessive botoxing. The makeup was designed by Bud Westmore who had once worked on the makeup for "Bud Abbott and Lou Costello meet Frankenstein" with the results in "The List of Adrian Messenger" not much above that level. The actors are unrecognisable – except for Kirk Douglas whose distinctive chin and jaw were impossible to disguise no matter the amount of putty employed. Likewise for Mitchum's voice. John Huston lived on a country estate in Ireland when he made this movie, and his love for fox hunting inspired the final scenes of the film with the countryside of Ireland beautifully photographed. Also a big plus for the film was Jerry Goldsmith's offbeat but jaunty score that announces the light nature of the film from the opening bars."The List of Adrian Messenger" did well at the box office despite being out-of-step with the more "modern" movies of the early 1960's. With its black and white photography and studio-bound depictions of London, the film had a certain quality that almost, but not quite, overcame the self-conscious gimmick.

This film is really one of a kind and handled with such aplomb by Huston, taking elements of film noir and mixing it with off-beat comedy. Describing the film as unorthodox might be right but scary is way off the mark. It's not the sort of film that makes you feel uneasy. It's just strange. It's a straight laced murder mystery with some bizarre disguises and cameos. I think the most unsettling feature is the remarkable resemblance between most of Kirk Douglas' disguises and the Jigsaw Killer in the Saw movies. Maybe that was one source of inspiration for Saw's makers? And to top this all, you've got some of the greatest screen legends, the beautiful Dana Wynter and a superb Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack. What more could you ask for?

(There are Spoilers) Visiting his good friend novelist Adrian Messanger, John Merivale, former WWII British intelligence officer and member of the secretive MI5 agency Anthony Gerthryn, George C. Scott, is puzzled by Messengers' somewhat cryptic sheet of paper that he gave him to investigate. The paper has ten names on it all seemingly having nothing to do with each other.It's not long afterword that when Messenger goes on a business flight to Canada that things begin to get a bit clearer for Gerthryn when the plane that Messenger is on suddenly explodes, from a time bomb that was secretly placed on it, in mid-air over the Atlantic Ocean. It just happened that Messenger survived the airplane crash by shearing a raft with another passenger of the doomed flight WWII ace French intelligence man Raoul La Borg, Jacques Roux. La Borg who took down, in his photographic mind, the dying mans last words that reveal, if deciphered, the truth about his list and the person who's not only responsible for his impending death but the deaths of all the persons, some who at the time were still alive, on it!Despite its novelty of guessing just who are the actors, Burt Lancaster Frank Sinatra and Tony Curtis etc. etc., playing in the movie with them having very obvious disguises. It's only Kirk Douglas as George Brougham, together with some half dozen other disguises, and Robert Mitchum as James Slattery who had any real role in the movies plot line. Instead of just showing up in the end and, when the film was finally over, taking off their disguise revealing to the startled viewers just who they were playing.Gethryn and Borg who both worked together in WWII against the Nazis team up to get to the bottom of what the late Adrian Messenger meant in his list of names and as the two check out the names one at a time.It turns out that all of them, with he exception of James Slattery, died mysteriously over the last five years. Trying to get to Slattery before the killer did the nutty and paranoid rummy gave the two the run around. Claiming that he's James brother Joe, who doesn't exist not who he really is James. Which in the end, with Gethryn & Borg giving up on him, lead to his death when the killer pushed him, wheelchair and all, off the docks and into the bay where he drowned.The killer***SPOILERS***finally reveals himself at a fox-hunt at the estate of the Marquis of Gleneyre, Clive Brook, as his long dead brothers son George Brougham. And gaining his confidence and being excepted by the Marquis as a member of the family he then manically plans to do him in on the next fox-hunt. Where Brougham sets a trap for the old man, who's expected to be riding on the lead, at the end of hunt. It now becomes crystal clear that the reason that the murderous George Brougham had murdered all the people on Messengers' list, as well as Messenger himself. In that they all knew about Bougham's treachery toward his fellow POW's whom they all happened to be. The one thing that all the men on Messengers' list had in common in being POW's in a brutal Japanese prison camp in Burma during WWII. With having them gotten out of the way Bougham is now trying to murder the Maquis of Gleneyer and make it look like an accident so he, as his nephew, can inherited his estate and all the riches and royalties that goes along with it. But there's one or two things that he never figured on and thats Gethryn & Borg and that in the end would be his undoing.