The Clouded Yellow

In Ralph Thomas’ The Clouded Yellow, Secret Service agent David Somers (Trevor Howard) is fired after botching a mission overseas. When he decides to take an unusual and unexpected job cataloguing butterflies at the country estate of Nicholas (Barry Jones) and Jess Fenton (Sonia Dresdel), he has no idea his Secret Service expertise and connections will come in handy again. Residing with the Fentons is their orphaned niece Sophie (Jean Simmons), who suffers trauma and mental confusion as a result of finding her mother murdered years earlier. When cocky gamekeeper Hick (Maxwell Reed) is found murdered on the grounds of the estate, circumstantial evidence points to Sophie as the killer, so Somers, who has grown extremely fond of the girl, flees with her. Now fugitives on the run, Somers and Sophie seek help from old contacts while a police dragnet closes in on them. Compared to the opening sequences on the Fenton estate, the gritty noir visuals really pop once the story moves into the city streets where gorgeous shadows conceal the characters up staircases and down alleyways, across docks and rooftops, and through bombed-out ruins. The ending scenes are burdened by a few gaps in logic and the mystery is revealed a bit too tidily, but the set pieces (confrontation on a waterfall ledge, rescue by crane) are extraordinary.