Review for The Clouded Yellow

The DVD distribution label Eureka has re-released Ralph Thomas' The Clouded Yellow (1950). If this wasn't enough news to wet your filmic appetite, they have also released it uncut for the very first time anywhere in the world. Their previous version, from 2008, ran for 81-minutes. This baby is 9-minutes longer!

This classic noir-tinged crime drama is an action packed thriller that ranks alongside Hitchcock's British crime thrillers like Blackmail (1929), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935) and Secret Agent (1936). It is fast-paced, tense, dynamic, exhilarating and suspenseful. It stars the Oscar nominated Trevor Howard as David Somers and the vibrant Jean Simmons as Sophie.


When British spy David is given marching orders, he applies for a low- maintenance job in the country, cataloguing butterflies. This is where David believes he can escape his past and be happy. However, he soon becomes entangled with his employer's niece, an 'unbalanced' young woman called Sophie. The police and her stepparents think she killed the local handyman as an act of revenge but David, believing her to be innocent, rescues Sophie. They go underground, travelling to the grim back alleys of Newcastle, the wide-open countryside of the Lake District and the grungy harbour of Liverpool. They stay one-step ahead of the law, that is, until the real killer tracks them down…


You only have to look at the acting talents of Howard and Simmons to see the calibre on display in this classic murder mystery. Take Howard, he was in David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945) and he played Major Calloway in Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949). When one thinks of Simmons, (who died at the start of the year aged 80) you can't help but to evoke memories of her playing the young Estella in David Lean's Great Expectations (1946). Who can also forget her performances in Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus (1947), Laurence Oliver's Hamlet (1948), William Wyler's The Big Country (1958) and Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960)? After watching them in The Clouded Yellow, these two actors leave an indelible mark in your mind. It's not only the actors that bring substance to The Clouded Yellow; the editor, Gordon Hales creates perfectly-paced suspense and the cinematography by Geoffrey Unsworth is vivid, noir-tinged and bleak.


Disc: The picture quality is poor compared to other Eureka titles from this period. It does distort the black and white photography from time to time but you can overlook this, as the film will keep you in the grip of suspense from start to finish.

Special Features: The lack of extra content does not detract from this disc. You know that a DVD label like Eureka would include supplementary material if there were any available. They are not the type of distributor to tack on a trailer, if they go in; they go in armed to the teeth!

Trivia: Trevor Howard was thirty-seven when he was embroiled in the on-screen love affair with a twenty-one year-old Jean Simmons.

Verdict: The Clouded Yellow is a Hitchcockian masterpiece.