The Fallen Idol



was the first of three masterpieces to result from the legendary meeting of director Carol Reed and writer Graham Greene, who together would also create The Third Man and Our Man in Havana. Elegantly balancing suspense and farce, this tale of the fraught relationship between a boy and the beloved butler he suspects of murder is a delightfully macabre thriller of the first order and a visually and verbally dazzling knockout.

Special Features

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer
• A Sense of Carol Reed, a 2006 documentary featuring interviews with director Carol Reed's friends and collaborators Illustrated Reed filmography
• Original press book
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: A book featuring new essays by film critic Geoffrey O'Brien, author David Lodge, and Reed biographer Nicholas Wapshott

Criterionforum.org user rating averages

I've been to see this twice at the NFT in the past two weeks, the second time dragging along my mother and a handful of friends. All loved it, and I can't wait to watch it again. Ralph Richardson's performance is second only to his turn in The Heiress and the young lad is tremendous.

Why Criterion have identified some parts of it as "farce", I've no idea. There are dead-on moments of humour, but they're far from the banana-skin variety. Those crazy Yanks...

Excellent! A really superb film that deserves to come out from the shadow of The Third Man. I know Pandora's Box is going to be the big attention-getter this time, but IMO, this is just as worthy a film in its own way.

Agreed. I hope that this one doesn't get lost in the shuffle. November looks to be a great month from Criterion, but for me, The Fallen Idol is the pick of the litter.

Next to La Double Vie it's a hard choice, but you may be right. This film is nearly perfect. I'm so thrilled about this month, even though Pandora's Box is not my favorite, I'm glad it's finally in the collection, and a commentary with Thomas Elsaesser makes it very tempting.

I concur. While Fallen Idol doesn't rise to the heights of Third Man in my view, it is still an excellent movie. It is also good to see another of Carol Reed's movies out on DVD, as many as yet have still not been released. Personally, I think Reed gets a bum rap from people who are still mad that his Oliver! (which I also enjoy very much) beat out 2001 for the Best Picture Oscar almost 40 years ago.

I'm looking forward to seeing this again as well. David Thomson agrees with many of the views expressed here. I was reading Carol Reed's entry in the Biographical Dictionary of Film and Thomson says that the three films - Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol and Third Man - were his best:


As well as other Reed films such as Odd Man Out, Night Train To Munich (with its connection to The Lady Vanishes with Margaret Lockwood in the lead and Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne reprising their Charters and Caldicott double act) and Way To The Stars I wonder what the chances are for a Criterion edition of the Boulting Brother's film of Brighton Rock? Despite the compromised ending ("What you want me to say is I love you...I love you...I love you..."!), it is still a fantastic film.

what the hell, if Criterion keeps picture-boxing all of their 1.33:1 films, im going to have to hold off on buying them till they rerelease them on HD. Im still timid about buying many dvds now this year, and the fact that they are releasing films for tube tvs rather than tvs that are becoming more and more prevalent (especially with the HD war going on) is really is putting me off. All of the other companies are upgrading their films while Criterion is downgrading them. Meh ill probably still buy it.

oh yah, the transfer is amazing

Is anyone else a little peeved that Criterion is so inconsistent when it comes to acknowledging the source material of films? With Short Cuts, Le Notti bianche, and The Man Who Fell to Earth, you even get the actual source material. With the Graham Greene adaptations (this and The Third Man) and the Bernanos adaptations (Diary of a Country Priest and Mouchette, it's almost as if the writer doesn't even exist. I'm not expecting Criterion to include the actual printed material as they surely cannot do that, but at least some background material on the writer would be welcome. It's not as if Graham Greene was some obscure writer. I mean, just look at the number of films made from his works, and the many that he adapted himself or wrote original screenplays for.

Actually, the story upon which the movie is based ("The Basement Room") is fairly short, so frankly, I'm just a little surprised that Criterion didn't try to include it. Maybe the Greene estate was charging too much.

But I'm with you, Matt. Surely Greene deserves some attention!

To be fair, they included Richard Clarke reading passages from The Third Man as the audio supplement on that disc. Tho I agree, more material on Greene was warranted.

They could be holding off for the Third Man reissue? That's the disc that's going to sell, so it makes sense to go the extra mile for it.

Article by David Lodge on THE FALLEN IDOL from today's 'The Guardian" here

Same as in the CC booklet? - unusually gives mention to a forthcoming CC release in an UK newspaper...

They could have included a video interview with the boy (Bobby Henrey). He's now aged 67 and living in Connecticut.

He gave a Q&A session earlier this year when the new print played at New York's Film Forum. An audio recording of the event can be heard here.

Nice interview/Q&A. Yeah, it's too bad Criterion didn't track him down. An interview of him would have been an excellent addition.

My memory is fuzzy of THIRD MAN as that was a rental for me, but I know via owning COUNTRY PRIEST that it has extensive info about Bernanos and the source novel via the Cowie commentary... in fact I was finding it a bit dry and tedious as Cowie was really going on at long length as the film unfolds about the differences between the source and the film-- whereas, as it is such a key film in Bresson's development (and one of, if not my actual, favorites from his canon) I wanted a heavier tilt in favor of the filmmaking process and on-set tidbits.

That useless Cowie commentary is a real grievance of mine for many reasons, but in general I don't think a screen-specific commentary is the place for discussing the adaptation process. It does a disservice to the author of the original text as well as the filmmaker. The inclusion of Bazin's essay on the film which discusses (and praises highly) Bresson's adaptation of the source material, either the source novel or readings from the source novel, and a discussion of Bernanos' work independent of its existence as the basis of the film would have been ideal.

You're probably right as the misappropriation of info on the Written Word (Cowie's Bernanos info) via the Spoken Word (the commentary itself) hidden behind a Filmed Image (the disc iimage) lacks correspondence and sinks the commentary. Dry and boring as erosion on limestone. Was more just giving you a probably unnecessary heads-up about the endless wheedling on the COUNTRY PRIEST disc about the Bernanos source.

Mine has shipped from dvdpacific Can`t wait to see this one. The first film of Reed that I saw was The Third Man, wich I obviously loved. So I`m looking forward to more

Based on the number of clips of the film in the Reed documentary on this disc, I think it's safe to say that Odd Man Out is on the way from Criterion.

That would be great! Received my copy yesterday. The transfer looks awesome (looking at the first couple of minutes I just took a look at ) and I do kinda like the transparent case they used When you open it, it says "The Fallen Idol" on the inside (behind the disc and booklet) as well
Stylish

I just watched my copy Fallen Idol and at around 20:11 into it, there appears to be some frames missing. Has anyone else noticed this problem or do I just have a defective disc.

Yes, I noticed the missing frames also. I'm pretty sure it is not a disc error.