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Footsteps in the Fog

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Footsteps in the Fog
Directed byArthur Lubin
Written byLenore J. Coffee
Dorothy Davenport
Arthur Pierson
Based onshort story by W. W. Jacobs
Produced byM. J. Frankovich
Maxwell Setton
StarringStewart Granger
Jean Simmons
CinematographyChristopher Challis
Edited byAlan Osbiston
Music byBenjamin Frankel
Production
company
Frankovich Productions
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
Release date
  • June 1955 (1955-06)
Running time
90 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£
Box office552,430 admissions (France)[1]

Footsteps in the Fog is a 1955 British Technicolor Victorian-era crime thriller starring Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons, with a screenplay co-written by Lenore Coffee and Dorothy Davenport, and released by Columbia Pictures. Directed by Arthur Lubin, the film is based on the W. W. Jacobs short story "The Interruption".[2]

It was shot at Shepperton Studios, with sets designed by the art director Wilfred Shingleton.

Plot

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After poisoning and killing his wife, the master of the house, Stephen Lowry, is blackmailed by his Cockney maid, Lily Watkins, who demands promotion. As she steadily takes the place of his dead wife, Lowry attempts to murder her as well. While attempting to murder Lily, by following someone who looked like her through the fog, he mistakenly kills Constable Burke's wife and gets chased by an angry mob, which he evades. Lily returns home and Stephen learns of his mistake. Some local bar-goers saw him murder Mrs Burke and Stephen is put on trial, but their claims are dismissed after they are revealed to drink a lot and Lily lies to provide an alibi. The main testimony however is Lily's – who swears he never left the house - she does this as she wants to marry him.

Although Lowry owes Lily his life, his eyes are on another woman, Elizabeth Travers, the daughter of a wealthy man and object of affection of his lawyer. He tells Lily it is part of a plot to gain money and he will use the money to take Lily and himself to America. He suggests he will marry her but demands she retrieves a letter she sent to her sister telling of Lowry's actions. But Herbert, her sister's husband rescues the letter from the fire. He goes to Lowry's lawyer and tries to extort £500 for the incriminating letter.

Lowry feigns illness and sends Lily to fetch the doctor. She says she will return urgently with the doctor within five minutes. He calculates this will be enough time for him to frame her by drinking the poison that he used to kill his own wife and planting it and his wife's jewelry in Lily's room.

Lily is, however, detained by the police as the "tell-all" letter she has written to her sister, to safeguard herself after the master's failed plot to kill her, surfaces.

Lowry's plan backfires – he is dying. He gets Burke the local policeman to run for the doctor. Meanwhile Lily's handwriting is compared to the letter. Lily is told it doesn't match – but it does. A warrant is sworn for the arrest of Lowry. Lily returns to the house and pieces together the situation, realising that Stephen never loved her as he accuses her of poisoning both him and his wife. After the doctor declares it's too late to save him, Lowry admits “I timed it, you said you’d be only five minutes!”. Stephen dies and Lily is asked to go to the police station for questioning.

Cast

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Production

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Development

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The film was based on a story "The Interruption", first published in the July 4, 1925, issue of Liberty magazine and later collected in Sea Whispers in 1926. Arthur Lubin bought the rights to the story in August 1949 for his own company. Several parties were interested in the story. The rights holders liked the job Lubin did on Two Sinners based on the story of a friend of theirs, Warwick Deeping. Lubin hoped to make the film in October 1949 from a script by Dorothy Reid with Glenn Ford starring.[3]

However Lubin instead made Francis the Talking Mule and became busy doing comedies with animals. He continued to seek finance for The Interruption saying he wanted to "remind producers that he can direct people too."[4] In August 1951 he said he said signed Leonard Styles to play the barrister and wanted to make the movie after It Grows on Trees.[5] In April 1952 Lubin said Dorothy Reid was writing a script and that he hoped to star Jean Simmons or Jennifer Jones in the female lead and Robert Donat in the male lead.[6]

In July 1952 Lubin said he was about to sign a deal with James Woolf of Romulus Films.[7] He visited England in August seeking to raise finance and hoped for Terence Rattigan to write the script.[8]

In October 1953 Lubin, who had just made Star of India in England, said he planned to shoot his still unproduced crime thriller in that country as The Interrupted with Glynis Johns in the female lead.[9] In March 1954 the film was called Deadlock and Lubin had sent a script to Alec Guinness.[10] Then in June 1954 Lubin said Columbia had agreed to finance and that Maureen O'Hara and George Sanders would star.[11]

Then in October Lubin announced the stars would be Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons and the film would be made by Mike Frankovich's company, Film Locations.[12] Later the title would be changed to Rebound[13] before Footsteps in the Fog.

The film was to be the second in a four picture slate from Frankovich's Film Locations. The first was Fire Over Africa. The third was to be Ghosts of Drury Lane directed by Lubin. The fourth was to be Matador starring and directed by JoséFerrer.[14] The third and fourth films were not made.

Shooting

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Arthur Lubin said he enjoyed making the film. "Mike [Frankovich] was a very nice person to work for", he recalled. "I had problems with the leading man, Stewart Granger, who hated me. He didn't like anything. He would go to Frankovich and say 'Mike, if Lubin doesn't stop annoying me I'm going to be sick tomorrow.' But miraculously the picture turned out to be a good one."[15]

The production budget was £112,118 plus an additional sum of $453,000 in fees for Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons, director Lubin and screenwriters Coffee and Davenport.[16]

Lubin wanted to follow it with another film for Frankovich, Ghosts of Drury Lane,[17] which was never made.

Reception

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According to Kinematograph Weekly it was a "money maker" at the British box office in 1955.[18]

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The story contains many echoes of Gaslight, and its Edwardian London setting includes the conventional elements of swirling fog, comic lower orders and sinister doings in the Big House. Although the mood of dark, enclosed terror is unevenly sustained, the film benefits from some stylish decor and photography and is quite efficiently directed. Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons provide very competent, if conventional, portraits of murderer and blackmailer, and the court scene contains a sharp performance by Peter Bull as the prosecuting counsel. The romantic sub-plot is rather tediously developed."[19]

A contemporary Variety review called it "humdrum, rarely exciting."[20]

In 2015 Gene Blottner said the movie is a "good Gothic noir" with both Simmons and Granger "believably playing vile characters."[21]

In 2019 Diabolique magazine called it "an unpretentious, enjoyable little thriller... it doesn’t hit great expressionistic heights but is lots of fun, and it's a shame box office receptions weren’t strong enough to allow him do more work in this line."[22]

References

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  1. ^ Box office information for Stewart Granger films in France at Box Office Story
  2. ^ "Footsteps in the Fog – Screenplay Info". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 18 July 2011.
  3. ^ Schallert, Edwin (15 August 1949). "Super Oscar Winners Likely to Join Forces; Latin Gains Star Rating". Los Angeles Times. p. B7.
  4. ^ THOMAS M. PRYOR (2 September 1951). "HOLLYWOOD DIGEST: Change in Taft–Hartley Act Sought by Actors Guild--R.K.O. Survey--Addenda European Canvass Songstress Returns Out of a Rut". New York Times. p. 57.
  5. ^ Schallert, Edwin (15 December 1951). "Drama: Louis Jourdan Stars in 'Happy Time;' Hugo Haas Will Play Pianist". Los Angeles Times. p. 9.
  6. ^ HEDDA HOPPER (1 April 1952). "'Rogue's March' Will Claim Peter Lawford". Los Angeles Times. p. 16.
  7. ^ Schallert, Edwin (21 July 1952). "Drama: Marines Again Will Land in 'Beachhead;' Singing Dog on Program". Los Angeles Times. p. B9.
  8. ^ HOWARD THOMPSON (31 August 1952). "RANDOM OBSERVATIONS ON PICTURES AND PEOPLE". New York Times. p. X3.
  9. ^ Scheuer, Philip K. (27 October 1953). "Lancaster Limping, but Production Plans Spurt; Glynis Will 'Interrupt'". Los Angeles Times. p. B9.
  10. ^ "Drama: Lubin Plans Fifth in 'Francis' Series". Los Angeles Times. 25 March 1954. p. A8.
  11. ^ Schallert, Edwin (18 June 1954). "Sanders and Maureen O'Hara Thriller Stars; Price Will Coproduce". Los Angeles Times. p. B7.
  12. ^ "WARNERS TO CUT 'A STAR IS BORN'". The New York Times. 23 October 1954. p. 13.
  13. ^ Schallert, Edwin (24 January 1955). "Marmont Future Newly Assured; Two Directors Win Ace Assignments". Los Angeles Times. p. B9.
  14. ^ Gilbert, George (2 February 1955). "Arthur Lubin's Credo on Directing". Variety. p. 22.
  15. ^ Davis, Roland L. (2005). Just Making Movies: Company Directors on the Studio System. University Press of Mississippi. p. 184.
  16. ^ Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 359
  17. ^ "British Dialects". Variety. 20 July 1955. p. 3, 11.
  18. ^ "Other Money Makers of 1955". Kinematograph Weekly. 15 December 1955. p. 5.
  19. ^ "Footsteps in the Fog". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 22 (252): 123. 1 January 1955 – via ProQuest.
  20. ^ Review of film at Variety
  21. ^ Gene Blottner (2015). Columbia Noir. McFarland. p. 82. ISBN 9781476617619 – via Google Books.
  22. ^ Vagg, Stephen (14 September 2019). "The Cinema of Arthur Lubin". Diabolique Magazine.
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