Green for Danger

Green for Danger (1946)

Murder... weapon or clue?

In the midst of Nazi air raids, a postman dies on the operating table at a rural hospital. But was the death accidental?

Date of release
1946-12-07
TMDB
6.7 / 10 (106)
Runtime
1h 31m
Genres
Mystery, Crime, Thriller
Director
Sidney Gilliat

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: Green for Danger
  • Filmed in: Pinewood Studios

Green for Danger is a 1946 British mystery thriller film directed by Sidney Gilliat and starring Sally Gray, Trevor Howard, Rosamund John, Leo Genn and Alastair Sim. It was written by Gilliat and Claud Gurney, based on the 1944 detective novel of the same name by Christianna Brand. The film was shot at Pinewood Studios in England. The title is a reference to the colour-coding used on the gas cylinders used by anaesthetists.

Production

The film was based on a novel by Christianna Brand. She was married to a surgeon who was assigned to a military hospital. She went along to watch an operation, and the anaesthetist told her how to commit murder. She thought of turning this into a thriller but could not think of a motive until a drunk man told her of an experience in a bomb shelter. She wrote the book, which was published in 1944. The New York Times called it "extremely involved."

Sidney Gilliat said he bought a copy of the novel at Victoria Station to read on a train. Though not attracted by the detective or the hospital setting, he said, "what appealed to me was the anaesthetics - the rhythmic ritual, from wheeling the patient out to putting him out and keeping him out (in this case, permanently), with all those crosscutting opportunities offered by flowmeters, hissing gas, cylinders, palpitating rubber bags, and all the…

In December 1945, the film was announced as a project for Individual Pictures, the company of Gilliat and Frank Launder. In January 1946, it was announced that Robert Morley would star. Morley was eventually replaced by Alastair Sim.

It was the first movie to be made at Pinewood Studios when it reopened after World War II. Pinewood was to be the basis for three companies: Individual, Cineguild, and the Archers.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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