My Death Is a Mockery (1952) User Reviews

Low Budget British Acting Tour De Force

[soren-71259 · 6/10 · 4 February 2018]

This rather hard to find little British film has few reviews on IMDB and a low rating: 4.9 at the time of this writing, which is pretty awful. While low budget and much of it set in darkness somehwat due to the less than perfect print I had of it, I nonetheless found it to be a wonderful acting tour de force between Donald Houston and Bill Kerr, the latter having been totally unknown to me.

What I particularly liked about this film was its ability to avoid the cliche and to take choices that I never expected. The plot twists are not able to be foreseen except that the movie is book-ended by the prisoner Houston waiting to be executed and speaking with a priest played by Liam Gaffney. As we move along we are expecting the movie and its lead characters to be somehow vindicated or excused or heroic and we are kept up in the air throughout until we, the viewing jury, must make our final assessment as to what has transpired and determine if the planned execution is justified. And we are left to wonder about Helen Bradley (Kathleen Byron) and what blame she bears for what has happened to her husband (Donald Houston).

The movie has that grim post World War II sense of grime and desperation that I as an American often get from British films of the period. It is like a British street gang movie of misguided youth but set on the sea. The writer and director are interested also in what causes the characters to behave the way they do and how difficult it is to survive in bad times and how we are all just one misfortune away from turning into someone we hardly recognize.

John Bradley as played by Houston is an individual down on his luck but who is a take-charge guy and natural leader. Does he deserve what seems about to happen to him at the end or is he not really guilty, partially guilty or a victim of bad lawyering, bleak godless destiny and/or a bad partner. Did the court really understand the man and judge him fairly? Would every viewer feel the same way about him?

I found the film thoroughly engaging, dark in its overall message, and so well played. The chemistry between the two male leads was palpable and was enhanced by the claustrophobic boat and the half-glimpsed violence encountered on the never really seen French coastline. One cannot help thinking that the author of this strange little film had a bleak vision of the world we live in and one other reviewer of the film on imdb suggests this in his tribute to his father, the author of the story.

The film also made me want to see more work by Donald Houston.

All in all, this is not for someone looking for a light bubbly fun film or even a carefree murder mystery like The Thin Man. But if you enjoy superior acting on a budget and you want to become a judge and jury evaluating what has gone on, this one is certainly worth at least a look.

The Prisoner's Dilemma

[boblipton · 5/10 · 31 January 2018]

I sometimes wonder if sidelighting from the left is supposed to indicate something different from sidelighting from the right in the movies. The bookends of this movie are shot as condemned prisoner Donald Houston spends his last few hours with priest Liam Gaffney, with the sidelighting shifted from prologue to epilogue. Here, it indicates it's dusk when the prologue begins, and dawn or the epilogue.

The story is about how Houston and wife Kathleen Byron are about to lose their trawler, but Bill Kerr suggests a spot of smuggling. After Miss Byron talks the unwilling Houston into it -- and has last minute second thoughts -- things go wrong.

It's an exercise in watching the two male characters under pressure, seeing which one of them will crack. Neither of them is very admirable. It's one of those second features where there doesn't seem to be anyone to root for, except possibly the parrot onboard. Still, at 65 minutes, all the technical details are handled well, the performances are good, and it passes the time quickly.

Effective B thriller

[malcolmgsw · 6/10 · 22 June 2019]

Donald Houston is a boat owner who is broke. He accepts a smuggling proposition from Bill Kerr which seals his fate. Much of it shot in the dark,probably for economy. Still worthwhile viewing.

Film 1952

[vjrm80 · 10/10 · 8 October 2006]

This film was from a book of my fathers but I never saw it being to young! has anyone a copy? I never knew it existed only the book. Is it being re run? If you saw it anywhere please let me know as I am interested. This has to run for 10 lines so what can I say about something that is important. My father was a POW for some years and later found that the the family who took him in when he was shot down in Belgium were assassinated. This and the Prison Camp added stress to an already sensitive nature. He wrote some books under another name John Riston. He died in 1963 leaving just the one child - myself. He was a man of deep thoughts and reacted to these in a difficult way, perhaps that is why he wrote so well. I have all his books, and my favourite is The Slender Thread.

Live from Death Row

[richardchatten · 8/10 · 21 May 2019]

Handsomely shot almost entirely on location and enhanced (like so many films unworthy of her) by the presence of the lynx-eyed Kathleen Byron. Like so many films of its era it evokes a time when life in Britain was a crushing daily struggle in the face of postwar austerity and honest folk had to be warned off the lure of easy money and kept on the straight and narrow by morality tales such as this, with threats of "dire penalties" for transgressors.

The film begins with a priest visiting the hero in prison to give him absolution of the eve of his execution, so we already know where this is going to end, the suspense lying instead in figuring out precisely how things are going to go pear-shaped and justify the title. At its heart lies the shifting expectations of how the nature of the relationships between the main characters will eventually pan out; and what eventually does happen is arrived at satisfactorily surprisingly and vividly justifies the title.

A hard lot for a smuggler who gets caught after the war

[clanciai · 9/10 · 15 March 2022]

An honest fisherman is persuaded to join the smuggling business when his fishing doesn't pay any more and he is faced with ruin. He joins the gamble, and as usual it ends up bad. His partner, who recruited him, fails to control his nerves in a moment of danger and gives them away when they are detained by the coast guard. Their French connection who delivered the smuggled brandy accidentally meets with his death on board their fishing vessel, and by his partner giving him away, Donald Houston gets the death penalty while his partner is only sentenced for life. But Donald has an ideal wife, Kathleen Byron, always the chief attraction of every film she is in, while his partner, Mr. Hansen, who recruited him, has nothing to live for or lose, but he has to stay on for life, being regularly visited by the priest who learns Donald's story. It's an interesting subject for moral discussion and consideration, and as everyone knows the death penalty in Britain was annulled a few years later - too late for Donald Houston, who probably would have been pardoned by a more reformed court. It's a noir adhering flawlessly to strict realism, it's a bleak story told straight with love and all human weaknesses and all, and as usual in British noirs the acting is wholly convincing.