Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageThe Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945)
Director: Robert Siodmak
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Though less deliriously noir than Siodmak's best work (Phantom Lady, The Killers, Cry of the City) this rather Hitchcockian smalltown thriller, produced by the Englishman's former associate Joan Harrison, is a typically impressive psychological study in various forms of obsession. Sanders is both superb and unusually touching as the shy, naive designer who falls for Raines, newly arrived from the city; Allgood and Fitzgerald are the sisters he lives with, the latter a scheming hypochondriac so possessive of her brother that she'll do anything to wreck his budding romance. A relatively conventional story is lent depth and originality by Siodmak's sense of detail and mood; Raines literally introduces colour into Sanders' life by daubing paint on his pedantically minaturist floral illustrations, while his repressed romanticism is evoked through his obsession with astrology. Sadly. Siodmak was saddled with an ending that undercuts the dark emotions preceeding it, but the overall effect is still gripping, intelligent, and oddly critical of staid petit bourgeois aspirations.Author: GA
Cast & crew
Director: Robert Siodmak
Producer: Joan Harrison
Cast: George Sanders, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Ella Raines, Sara Allgood, Moyna McGill, Samuel S Hinds full cast
Genre(s): Film Noir
Duration: 80 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Time Out's 50 greatest monster movies
As Joe Johnston’s long-awaited reinvention of Universal’s howl-at-the-moon classic ‘The Wolfman’ hits cinemas, Time Out lists our 50 favourite cinematic stalkers, growlers, slashers and biters.
Mark Kermode: A life in film
Dave Calhoun chats to Britain's most outspoken film critic and pundit ahead of the release of his memoirs
Has Ricky Gervais gone all serious?
The trailer to 'Cemetery Junction' suggests that its writer-director is suppressing his funny bone.
The genius of Roman Polanski
Ahead of his new film, 'The Ghost', we must forget the media circus and remember the artist pleads Wally Hammond
Oscars 2010: The nominees
Tom Huddleston offers his acute analysis on the list of nominees for the 2010 Academy Awards
Rotterdam 2010: Geoff Andrew's report
Geoff Andrew finds rich leftfield pickings at the 2010 Rotterdam Film Festival
Can Tom Ford cut it as a director?
After ten years as creative head of Gucci, Tom Ford has directed his first movie. Nina Caplan meets him
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
So here it is… Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this.
2009: The year in film
We look back at the best movies of 2009 and pick out some of our favourite lists, features and interviews.
What do you think?
Post your review now