In a small mountain village in France, they are not going to ring the church bells until the return of a relic, the Green Glove. Suddenly the bells start to ring, and when they investigate, they find a dead man, and the relic in its old place. We then drop back a few years....
Oh, why bother? It's a typical Hitchcock plot, with the Green Glove the Maguffin which everyone wants, Glenn Ford and Geraldine Brooks the plucky Americans whom we're supposed to root for, and George Macready the bad guy. True, it's not Hitchcock directing, but it is Charles Bennett doing the writing, which is probably why he lifted the pub scene from THE 39 STEPS. It's not plagiarism when you steal from yourself. It's just lazy.
That's not to say this is a bad movie. Director Rudolph Maté, having spent 28 years being a fine cinematographer, always made his movies visually interesting, and the big pursuit up the mountain that leads into the finish is very impressive. It does go on too long, with a slow start, and Ford doesn't impress me in this role. To be honest, he rarely impresses me in any role, but the audiences of the era seemed to like him, so it's obviously just me. Miss Brooks gives it her all, and Macready is creepy, as he could be.
