Worst Remake Ever? [View All]

[Matilda]

Last night on TCM I saw the 1964 remake of "Night Must Fall" for the first time - and I wish I hadn't
bothered. I've never seen it before; didn't even know it existed. I'm looking forward to the next
screening of the 1930's version so that I can wipe this tragic failure from my mind.

Albert Finney played the Robert Montgomery role, and although I'm normally an admirer of Finney, I
couldn't believe how bad his acting was. Unlike Montgomery's smooth and likeable psychopath, Finney
did everything but play with his toes and babble. And the first scene was of him hacking away at
a body, and then throwing an axe into a river - why not take out an advertisement? He was so smarmy
when he wheedled his way into the household of old Mrs Bramson (played by Mona Washbourne, the only
sound performance in the film), the rest of the characters would have had to be blind, deaf and
totally stupid not to have him picked for a total nutter from the beginning. And while I'm not an
expert on the Welsh accent, Finney's slipped so badly from scene to scene, I could hardly believe
my ears.

Rosalind Russell's wonderful repressed but yearning spinster was replaced by Susan Hampshire as a
spoiled little society brat - if anybody deserved to be decapitated on sight, it was she. I'd have
handed the axe to the murderer myself.

This film was made just a year after the wonderful "Tom Jones" (which Finney reportedly hated) - how
could the same actor give two such wildly differing performances? I did notice in the titles that
Finney was one of the producers - perhaps the director was afraid to rein him in, because he was
definitely in great need of being pulled back, and even sat upon to calm him down from the eye-
rolling and grimacing that he was prone to.

I read some laudatory reviews on IMDb, and can only suppose that those people had never viewed the
original Montgomery/Russell version, or else were such devoted Finney fans they were unable to
exercise any sound judgement at all.

If it comes your way - be warned!