Venetian Bird

Venetian Bird

22/4/1953 1h 34m 5.9/10

Overview

Private eye Edward Mercer travels to Venice to locate a man due a reward for his aid in the war. Shortly after arriving, he becomes the prime suspect in the murder of his local contact. In his quest to clear his name, Mercer uncovers a conspiracy. Even the local magistrate seems to be working against him, and Mercer begins to suspect the man he came to find is behind it all.

Director

Ralph Thomas

Top Billed Cast

Walter Rilla

Walter Rilla

Count Boria

Richard Todd

Richard Todd

Edward Mercer

John Gregson

John Gregson

Renzo Uccello

Eva Bartok

Eva Bartok

Adriana Medova

Margot Grahame

Margot Grahame

Rosa Melitus

George Coulouris

George Coulouris

Chief of Police Spadoni

Reviews

CinemaSerf

CinemaSerf

9/9/2022

6/10

Richard Todd is PI "Mercer" who is sent to Venice by a grateful French insurer to track down a man whom they want to reward for his sterling service during WWII. On arrival, however, things start to go seriously pear shaped, corpses abound and soon he must stay one step ahead of traitors and police alike as he tries to fathom out what's going on - and to save his own bacon. Despite a cast including a glamorous but rather static Eva Bartok ("Adriana"); an efficient George Coulouris as the dodgy Police chief "Spadoni" and an oddly cast John Gregson ("Uccello") this film doesn't really catch fire. Maybe it's the fallibility of the underlying premiss, or the really stilted performance of Todd - either way, it doesn't really go anywhere for much of it's 95 minutes and but for quite an exciting rooftop chase near the end, would probably sink without trace. The writing and direction needed much more pace, the story isn't developed nearly so much as it could have been and I was sadly disappointed by the rather meagre end product.

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