堕落的偶像 The Fallen Idol(1948)
简介：
- 故事发生在一所大使馆中，在小男孩菲利普（Bobby Henrey 饰）的眼中，管家班尼思（拉尔夫·理查德森 Ralph Richardson 饰）是如假包换的英雄。这其中的原委要追溯到菲利普经常外出的父母身上，父母不在，照顾和看管菲利普的责任自然就落到了班尼思的身上，在菲利普这样一个敏感又单纯的年纪，一个替他打点一切事宜的人就等同于无所不能的英雄。
演员：
影评：
- 当我们内心有秘密的时候，意味我们拥有了制造谎言的可能，电影《坍塌的偶像》（the fallen idol）里，就围绕这样一个每个人都不可回避的问题。虽是三四个人的故事，看似并不会复杂，可是因为有了懵懂的孩子、说谎的男人、说谎的女人、不断发问的警察，故事就不再单纯，而是丰富起来。这部电影并不是晦涩的说教，而是在精心编写的，符合逻辑的现实中，体味着不同寻常的困境，也是人类共同的困境。
成人世界里，总要堤防孩子们的诚实。这里充满着微妙，大人们既避讳着孩子，又觉得仿佛可以利用他们的一知半解来成全自己不被人知道的秘密。Mr. Baines和她的情人julie的约会就是这样在既躲藏着小Phillipe，又无所顾忌的交谈。但最后Mr. Baines还要嘱咐Phillipe不要把他和julie在一起的事告诉Mrs. Baines。
可孩子并不知道保守秘密的重要性，小Phillipe在被迫将秘密告诉Mrs. Baines之后，他曾问Mr. Baines，保守秘密真的那么重要吗？而此时Mr. Baines正带着julie走向小Phillipe的公寓(Mr. Baines是这家的执事，即管家)。
当Mrs. Baines获得一个秘密的时候，也要小Phillipe和她之间的秘密。年轻的孩子在点头答应时，没有想到，秘密的泄漏会导致人命关天的案件来。Mrs. Baines故意说自己外出，造成Mr. Baines和情人到家中约会，在秘密的建立背后，还有阴谋。
真正让孩子在说谎与诚实中陷入混乱的，就是Mrs. Baines坠楼身亡。他只看到了Mrs. Baines坠下楼的瞬间，尽管他很讨厌Mrs. Baines，但仍感到他一直喜爱的Mr. Baines很可能是将自己妻子推下楼的凶手，因为小Phillipe看到了开头两人的争吵，再加上结尾的惨剧，虽然没有看到中间的过程，但他的联想能力足以把他推向“他杀”的命案的结论中去。
可为了拯救他心目中的偶像Mr. Baines，小Phillipe在警察的讯问中，开始说谎。孩子没有成人的谋划的伎俩，不知哪句可以诚实，哪句要说假话。当然，最后一切都搞清楚了，就是Mrs. Baines从落地窗滑下去的。
而就是这巧妙的设计（Mrs. Baines的真正死亡，他没有看到），致使小Phillipe再次干扰大人们的思路。假如他目睹了Mrs. Baines的真正死因，事情也就没有这么多波折。电影也就没那么吸引人了。
人们也不再听他的言语，警察直接说出，我们不要再受孩子的干扰了。小Phillipe成为最无辜，最摸不着头脑的角色。不过，通过两个人秘密的掩盖，所导致的悲剧，他真的畏惧别人给与的秘密了。那看似有些分享的意味，其实背后有着复杂的现实。 偷窥者，説謊者，傾聽者，保密者。 一位孤独的孩童因為崇拜者的私密情事所引發的惨案在無意中扮演着多重角色：他窥探，当他想得知“秘密”的意义；他説謊，当他被'厭惡'的人逼迫或想捉緊喜愛之人時；他傾聽，当他迷迷糊糊闖入婚姻的禁地時；他保密，当他逝言順从并守口如瓶時。他还想充当大人的保护者，為他镸久以來的陪伴者，尊崇者及私自以為的“謀殺者”辯护，他采取言听計从的态度却又不堪盘問；他撒謊，反而颠倒黑白，适得其反；然後他决定吐露真言，又被当成麻烦以致被彻底無视。当谎言與真实纠缠不休，把懵懵懂懂的孩子弄得無所适从，搅得頭晕目眩，最後他帯着理不清的思绪投入到了陌生媽媽的桎梏與懷抱里。
- 扣人心弦的90分钟，让人反思的却绝不仅仅是90分钟。
从剧作，到导演技法，倒摄影，表演，几乎都是无可挑剔的。
对真话与谎言的辩证思考，对孩童与成人世界的探讨，都达到了一定高度。
从观赏角度，里德也是控制观者情绪的一等一高手。
那个纸飞机晃晃悠悠地飞下去，一直飞到警探脚底边，这个过程无比揪心。真好，就这样让紧张的情绪沿着飞翔的轨迹滑行。
里德也多次像希区柯克那样（让你看到桌下的炸弹），让观者“知道”，剧中人（部分）“不知道”，以此增加危机感。
我们知道夫人躲在家里捉奸，但是执事不知道，一直想什么时候穿帮。
最后段落有一个镜头是执事看到了手枪，然后镜头就切掉，观者就一直担心在警探发现真相的同时，执事恰以自尽。 
This is an immemorial conundrum for a middle-aged married man in our monogamous society: whereas his wife becomes more and more embittered and insufferable, out of a stroke of luck (or desperation), he finds a possible new lease on life with a younger, beautiful woman, the strategy of bailing out from a dead-end marriage often goes awry when running afoul of a misery-needs-company retaliation from the deserted and begrudged. This is what happens in Carol Reed's THE FALLEN IDOL, adapted by Graham Greene from his short story THE BASEMENT STORY.
In London, Mr. Baines (Richardson) is the butler of the ambassador of an unspecified francophone country, whose wife (Dresdel, snarky, fierce and uncompromisingly obnoxious) also works in the embassy, but he is chastely enamored with a younger colleague Julie (Morgan), when the latter gently hands him her ultimatum, Mr. Baines decides to reclaim his freedom, only Ms. Baine is anything but a soft touch, she will fight her corner until her last breath, but is her falling to her death is an accidental windfall for Mr. Baines or his crime of passion?
In the eyes of an audience, the whole act is plain as day, but through the lens of our main subject, a young boy Philippe (Henrey), the son of the ambassador who is left alone in the palatial residence, Greene’s mordant tale points up a child’s innocence getting embroidered with the falsehood of the adult life, and who is the titular“the fallen idol”? It is Mr. Baines, an avuncular father figure to Philippe and entertains him with his tall-tale adventures in Africa, which doesn’t necessarily mean it is true. After incidentally discovering Mr. Baines’ assignation with Julie, whom he refers to Philippe as his niece (the jumping-off place of a concatenation of lies which would perniciously compound Philippe’s inchoate worldview), Philippe is subjected to an untapped territory of keeping secrets, firstly from the idolized Mr. Baines, then from a harpy Ms. Baines, until he has been caught between defending a murderer (at least from his perspective, no one would blame him for his conviction) and grappling with the horrific happenstance, although, the film dramatically blurs the moral line by depicting Ms. Baines as an utterly unpleasant creature (she is the one dispatches Philippe’s pet snake, an apt symbol of the reptilian treachery among adults), so much so that no one is supposed to feel sorry for her upshot, a broad stroke emanates a ghost of misogyny albeit conveniently enhancing the credibility of Philippe’s dithered reaction.
Yet by and large, the film is a cracking allegory taps into a grey area and ushered by a convincingly elicited child performance as our undivided focal point from a young Henrey, who is not exactly an acting prodigy and the end result should be equally attributed to Mr. Reed’s patient guidance as well as to this boy's expressive reaction shots.Ralph Richardson, establishing an impermeable veneer of decorousness and presence of mind nonetheless, carefully carries an undertow of cravenly helplessness writs large in the latter part before a rushed revelation saving the day. As for Michèle Morgan, as svelte as an indubitable attention-grabber, her part is thinly written and largely sidelined.
Against the grain of an arrestingBildungsroman, THE FALLEN IDOL potently accentuates Reed’s directional prowess and his impeccable knack of frame composition and handsome chiaroscuro, the shots of a nocturnal street-scape tellingly anticipates his defining pièce-de-résistance THE THIRD MAN (1949). For all its aesthetic inclination and profound perspicacity, when Philippe exasperatedly hollers that it is him who upset the vase, one feels unable to refrain from thinking that here is a step too far of Reed’s indoctrination, a conspiratorial contemplation in silence might have worked better under this circumstance.
referential point: Carol Reed’s THE THIRD MAN (1949, 8.3/10).