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Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Expected more

Absolutely Fantastic

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

In London, veteran pilot Paul Massie (as Jeffrey "Jeff" Buckenham) sees a former World War II buddy on television. The show's reporter is interviewing handsome British aristocrat Dirk Bogarde (as Mark Sebastian Loddon) and his American wife Olivia de Havilland (as Margaret "Maggie" Loddon) about Mr. Bogarde's notable family estate. Bogarde has trouble remembering events from prior to his years as a prisoner of war in Germany. The experience made his memory unreliable and his hair turn grey, according to Bogarde. After watching the broadcast, Mr. Massie declares Bogarde an impostor..."Libel" ends up being a little confusing, even though the identity problems in the plot are cleared up satisfactorily. For most of the running tome, the story favors one conclusion, making it seem less like a mystery; Bogarde does an excellent job, considering. Distracting, but important in the script, is his "grey" hair color. He looks more like a younger, blond man while his co-star's dated hairstyle makes Ms. De Havilland look like the older woman. Their age difference, five years, wasn't that big. As dueling lawyers, Robert Morley and Wilfrid Hyde-White ensure the courtroom scenes play engagingly.******* Libel (10/23/59) Anthony Asquith ~ Dirk Bogarde, Olivia de Havilland, Paul Massie, Robert Morley

Having just seen "Libel" on TCM, I was pleasantly surprised....certainly, it is not a great film, but still was very entertaining, and the settings were extremely well done. The story line has been done before, but the acting of some very good English stalwarts plus Olivia de Havilland as an American wife to an English Baron, makes it well worth watching. Dirk Bogarde (never a favourite of mine) does an excellent job in a dual role, and is ably supported by Robert Morley, Paul Massie and Wilfred Hyde-White. There is no doubt that the producers of this film have come up with a film that still stands up today, and be proud of the end result. There are some very clever twists and the use of flash-backs was excellent. I can recommend this to everyone

The acting in this film was superb and the storyline kept me interested. A must see if your into classic movies. I loved this movie. I'd really like to see it sold on video/DVD, it would be a great addition to my classic's collection.

This movie employs good actors, particularly some of the great English character actors of the time. However, the premise of the plot- one person changing identities with another, ruined the movie for me. What I don't understand, and wish some other movie buff could explain, how do writers get paid for stories when they show an complete lack of basic understanding of the military. Even way back in WWII, English soldiers were fingerprinted, and most soldiers wore their dog tags religiously, particularly those who served in combat. I would imagine a baron would be particularly concerned that his remains arrive back in the family plot. These two facts of military life were never explained. The final insult to our intelligence came when a uniform of a near comatose patient is presented in the court room. Since the war ended in 1945, and the setting of the movie was contempory (1959), 14 years had elapsed. What happened to the soldier's identification tags? What efforts had been made to notify the patient's family? In real life, the question of responsibility would have generated a search to determine whether the patient was a British soldier. The two main characters were captured at the evacuation at Dunkirk, often referred as the Miracle of Dunkirk because 400,000 soldiers did excape. The number of majors captured at Dunkirk would have been relatively small, and if a hospital was stuck with a patient for long term care, it stands to reason a serious effort would be made to determine who their patient was.