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There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Outstanding film of love, suspense, jealousy, rage, guilt, justice, and the uncomprehending nature of pre-pubescent boys.And what a cast. Ralph Richardson is the butler in the French embassy in London. The Ambassador's family takes off for a brief vacation, leaving the mansion to Richardson and his wife, and leaving them in custody of their young boy, Bobby Henrey. This must give Richardson a great deal of pleasure.Also giving Richardson a great deal of pleasure is his ongoing affair with the foxy featured blond Michelle Morgan, the embassy's typist. After all, Richardson isn't getting along with his wife for reasons that the script perhaps makes a little too obvious. She's practically bipolar.Richardson and Henrey get along very well though. The butler spins out long yarns involving lions in Africa and killing a Mau Mau leader in self defense. But then Richardson lies to him all the time, partly to entertain the child and partly to conceal from him the affair with Morgan, who, he tells the kid, is his "niece." Henrey, however, lacking the skill at deception that an adult would have, spills the beans to Richardson's wife, who goes berserk, whacks the kid around, has a violent confrontation with her husband, and, while trying to peek into the bedroom, slips from an overhead ledge in the manse and breaks her well-deserved neck.The authorities are called in. At first, they assume the body at the foot of the stairs is the result of an accident. But Richardson comes out with a couple of lies, trying to keep his girl friend out of it. And Henrey lies too, thinking he's helping his idol, except that every time he lies, he gets Richardson into more trouble, until the police are ready to take Richardson down to the precinct and charge him with murder.I first saw this many years ago and wasn't very impressed. The springboard for the story is pretty banal -- married man has an affair and tries to hide it from his wife. But I'm far more impressed now that I know more about what's up. I suppose that's a way of saying the movie is designed for an adult audience.Carol Reed directed with panache. There is hardly a static scene. When the cops are interrogating someone, the Chief Inspector -- Dennis O'Dea with the face of an IRS auditor -- and Richardson stand facing one another, but O'Dea's minions are wandering around in the background, listening carefully, glancing at Richardson, fiddling with some props. The photography by Georges Merinal is memorable, especially when Henrey is running around the dark and cobblestoned streets in his pajamas.There are moments of humor too. The French ambassador's secretary, Karel Stepanek, shows up and one of the detectives, proud of his command of a foreign language, keeps inserting French phrases into the conversation, in a terrible accent. Finally, he says to Stepanek in French that he's sorry for causing him all this trouble, and Stepanek glances at him with annoyance and says in English, "You would trouble me much less if you spoke English." And when Richardson, Morgan, and Henrey visit the zoo, the two lovers are deep in a quiet conversation, which the kid interrupts with, "Oh, look at the monkeys! Look at the monkeys! What are they doing?" Richardson looks at the monkeys -- which the viewer doesn't have a chance to do -- and uncomfortably hustles them away.It's enjoyable and suspenseful and is a kind of primer on how we can sometimes be led astray by our best intentions.

After seeing this film for the second time, I am upgrading my review of it. The one fault this film has is a problem in many older British films -- segments of it have a slow pace. There are definitely parallels here to Hitchcock's style of directing and type of story. However, Hitchcock would have kept the pace up throughout. The film is based on a short story by Graham Greene, and was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Direction and Screenplay.The film highlights a positive relationship between a butler and the young son of a diplomat. The boy idolizes the butler (hence the title). But, the butler (Ralph Richardson) is involved in an affair that he is hiding...but not too well...which the boy stumbles upon. The butler's wife...well, you sort of hope she will meet a bad end...and she does...falling to her death from a window while trying to catch her husband's infidelity. The boy sees part of the incident and jumps to the conclusion that it was murder...while it really was an accident. Of course, he wants to protect his idol, but only manages to make things worse...a sort of "oh what a terrible tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive" situation.Ralph Richardson is superb here, as are the two women -- his wife (Sonia Dresdel...who will remind you a bit of Gail Sondergaard) and his mistress (Michele Morgan). The only other actor here that most Americans will recognize is Jack Hawkins, who does nicely as the inspector investigating the death. However, special note should be made of the young actor who plays the boy -- Bobby Henrey, who does much better than most of the child actors of that era.I highly recommend this film! It's a good "page turner".

I don't wish to duplicate other members synopses of the storyline of this wonderful, classic film, but I would like to say something about the performance of the then eight years old Bobby Henrey as Phillipe and how crucial he was to Carol Reed's realisation of The Fallen Idol. Bobby's parents were writers and he had initially been chosen to star in the film both for his looks when Reed had seen a photograph of him peering out of the window of his London apartment on the dust jacket of one of his parents books and because he was bi-lingual, having spent his early childhood in both France and England and spoke English with a French accent, which was called for in the script. Bobby had never acted before, but Reed, a man of infinite patience where children and child actors were concerned, persevered with him over an incredible shooting schedule of five months (a long time for those days) shooting numerous takes of every scene involving the boy and his dialogue, which paid off handsomely, as he managed to coax out of him the most incredible and natural performance by a child actor ever seen on the screen and certainly not bettered since.No better example of all this can be found than in the scene where Philippe is convinced that Baines, his only friend whom he idolises, is going to be sent to the gallows for a murder he did not commit. At this point, he realises just how much he adores and loves Baines and that he cannot live without him. With all the passion in his heart and soul, Phillipe pleads with the police to listen to him as he finally decides to tell the truth about what happened in the hope that this will save his friend: "Oh, please, you must listen to me! I have something to tell you! Oh, please listen to me! Oh, please! Please listen to me! You have to listen to me! You must listen to me! It will only take a moment and it will put everything right." But the police completely ignore him. This scene is so gut-wrenchingly heart-breaking, that it's almost too upsetting to watch and you become totally involved in it and feel very deeply for this increasingly desperate little boy. It is an incredible performance that is so perfect, it has to be seen to be believed. I cannot recommend this film highly enough. It is one of the finest films ever made in the history of the cinema.

'The Fallen Idol' is in theory a good and interesting film. The final result can be disappointing. At least on an early impression. This is a complicated movie to rate and judge. It's not confusing or inconsistent but it's complex and doesn't always make sense. Nevertheless, it can grow on you with time.Visually it is one of the best-looking films in black and white. The plot is interesting although it could be better worked at times. This film is often said to be "hitchcockian" for its film-making and "suspense". There is some suspense but nothing all that "hitchcockian". And that's where lies one of the weaknesses of this film: it definitely could use more true suspense, more darkness, more terrifying moments.The film takes place in London, in a fancy big house with a french little boy named Phillipe, the butler Baines and the butler's wife Mrs Baines. Phillipe idolizes the butler, but can't stand Mrs. Baines. And rightfully so, she's a horrible person. She is mean for Phillipe (she even slaps him) and she hates MacGregor (Phillipe's little pet snake). MacGregor is a cute name for a little snake and, even though I never think of any snake as being cute, I think MacGregor is a cute snake. Phillipe is very fond of his beloved MacGregor and very loving towards him. Mrs. Baines is so cruel that she burns poor innocent MacGregor alive! So it's not like she doesn't deserve her fate, even if accidental.Phillipe witnesses Mrs. Baines's accidental death, but thinks he saw Baines intentionally murder her. Phillipe is a strange little boy. On one hand, he's utterly cute and adorable. On the other hand, he's not annoying but he often has erratic behaviors and seems to be a very confused and immature boy and has the bad habit of stubbornly lying. He doesn't seem to have a stable personality. That may be in part due to the abuse he suffered from Mrs. Baites. Or perhaps he was already born with some kind of personality disorder. He also runs away like crazy after witnessing Mrs. Baines's death as if he was terrified but acts as if he wasn't. He lies to the police and his clumsy attempts to protect his idol almost put Baines in trouble. Phillipe is a complicated character, definitely not an easy one to evaluate. He seems like a child who is losing his innocence and hides his emotions as much as possible.Actors do well in their roles: Ralph Richardson as Baines, Michèle Morgan as Baines's lover Julie, Sonia Dresdel as Mrs. Baines and Bobby Henrey (who really is french) as Phillipe.This should definitely be on Top 250.