Hell Is Sold Out (1951)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Michael Anderson

Writers:

Moie Charles (writer)
Maurice Dekobra (novel)

Release Date:

January 1953 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A book is sent to the publishers under the name of "Lom", a popular writer, long believed to be dead...

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Cast

Mai Zetterling	...	Valerie Martin
Herbert Lom	...	Dominic Danges
Richard Attenborough	...	Pierre Bonnet
Hermione Baddeley	...	Mme. Louise Menstrier
Nicholas Hannen	...	François
Olaf Pooley	...	Cheri, male secretary
Eric Pohlmann	...	Louis, the proprietor
Kathleen Byron	...	Arlette de Balzamann
Joan Young	...	Mrs. Gertrude de Montfort Cole
Althea Orr	...	Mrs. Eunice Weinhardt
Virginia Bedard	...	Mrs. Irma Reinhardt
Joan Hickson	...	Hortense, the housekeeper
John Penrose	...	Repatriation Officer
Geoffrey Toone	...	Swedish Consulate Clerk
Mara Lane	...	Cafe Singer

Runtime:

85 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:S | Sweden:Btl

Company:

Raymond Stross Productions

Trivia:

The title refers to one of the novels that the heroine has written which she passes off as being written by her late husband.

Nothing very interesting about this one

This is a pointless film. Young Richard Attenborough gives a very sensitive performance, and Herbert Lom gives a good performance as well. But the film is a meaningless ramble, based (one presumes loosely) on one of the novels by the then best-selling Maurice Dekobra, whose novels are largely unreadable today because they are so boring and badly written. I suppose one could classify this film in the genre of 'romantic comedy', despite the fact that it is neither really romantic nor funny. Mai Zetterling gives a convincing performance as an impostor who moves into the house of a successful author thought to have been killed in the War, posing as his widow. It also turns out that she has written 'his' last novel herself under his name. She did this because his publisher (broadly over-played by Hermione Baddeley in trailing boas) had herself stolen the girl's diary which had been sent to the author while away at war, and published that as 'his' previous novel. Then the author, played by Lom, returns home after all, to find himself with a 'wife' and two successful novels, neither written by himself. A situation like that could have made a most amusing film if entrusted to the correct hands, but this film by pedestrian director Michael Anderson is tedious and unrewarding. Also, despite her acting talent, one wonders what it was that people saw in Mai Zetterling to make her a star at this time in several British films. She is not at all interesting either to look at or in terms of her screen personality. Perhaps she was the only Swedish girl any of them knew, and this was as exotic as they came at that time (yawn, yawn). Pretty tame stuff, tepid as well. Don't bother.