Review of The Light Touch (1951) by Allan C — 22 Jun 2016

Writer/director Richard Brooks is someone whom I've come to appreciate more and more over recent years. I think I initially became familiar with him over his western like "The Professionals" and "Bite the Bullet," which are both good and solid entertainment, but are not as smart or hard hitting as some of his best films like "Blackboard Jungle," "In Cold Blood," or "Brute Force.

" This film, "The Light Touch," was his second feature film as a director and is quite good, even if it's isn't as great as some of his classics. The story follows art thief Stewart Granger as a young innocent artist, Pier Angeli, falls in love with him, thinking he's a legitimate art dealer.

Granger tried to keep Angeli out of his dirty dealings with crime figure George Sanders, but that's not how drama works. The film features a solid cast, that also includes Norman Lloyd and Mike Mazurki, and some nice on location photography, but the film is rather slow moving and Granger seems to give a rather lifeless performance.

I was never all that familiar with Pier Angeli, but she is quite good in the film and reminds me of a young Ingrid Bergman. I think what this film needed was was a director like Jules Dassin to bring more of a clipped pace to this character driven crime story.