The Fallen Idol (1948)

Around the film's midpoint, an anticipatory cut occurs to reveal the close-up of our haggard villain from the point-of-view of our vulnerable child protagonist. Even though the cut was undoubtedly expected and, therefore, technically cannot be a surprise, the close-up still sent a shock-wave of intense dread down my back. After a day of thinking, I assert that this feeling is produced by fictioneers Carol Reed & Graham Greene engineering a 15-minute (or so) build-up of suspense preceeding this "shocking" cut. Throughout this build-up, only glimpses of a limb or the billow of clothing fabric belonging, presumably, to the villain is revealed onscreen. This technique is analogous to casually winding up a mechanical clock & then letting the alarm go off after many minutes have passed. There's something here not quite Hitchcockian that I have yet to identify.

I bet Ridley Scott was well-versed in Carol Reed films when he conceptualized the staging and cinematography of his suspense-horror "Alien" (1979). The makers of "Alien" seems to employ the same build-up for the lethal beasts before the actual creatures were sufficiently revealed onscreen. Of course, Ridley took it one step further (also due to budget constraints) by not revealing the entire beast in high key lighting. I'll have to listen up the next time I do a DVD commentary on a Scott Free film.

"The Fallen Idol" is predominantly a suspense film & one would not guess this from the uneventful first act; just imagine a "Shane"-like little boy running around large halls, being inquisitive (ala sticks and stones and puppy dog tails). What a wonderful discovery! An entertaining genre film and a discussion movie too; due to the problematic nature of truth when it involves multiple characters/spectators, the child protagonist quickly gets on the road to disillusionment.

I watched the Criterion Collection DVD release.