Customer Reviews

Mine Own Executioner [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a psychotherapist I find almost no films that show what that process is about. Mine Own Executioner with Burgess Meredith is my favorite of the few.

Meredith plays a lay-analyst (no medical qualifications) treating a WWII British soldier traumatized by his P.O.W. experiences at the hands of the Japanese in Burma. There is drama here (and melodrama) -- will he mistakenly kill his wife before Meredith can help him resolve his still simmering rage? Stay tuned or viewed.

But the heart of this film is about the humaness of the analyst. He mistreats the wife he takes for granted; while playing with fire with the attractive wife of a colleague. Eventually he runs head-long into his own less-than heroic character and makes peace with himself.

If it wasn't for Burgess Meredith this would have been a five star review, but he's just not cut for leading man roles, especially this one, in which he is catnip to women, married to Dulcie Gray but carrying on a too-hot-not-to-cool-down affair with the wife of a dumbass colleague. Maybe David Niven could have pulled this off, but little Burgess Meredith looks like a kid next to the statuesque beauty (or whatever it is) of Christine Norden, who towers over him like a sexy Colossus.

I'll tell you who's also not very good, Kieron Moore, as the returned Prisoner of War who keeps looking at his wife and seeing instead a Japanese guard ready to torture him again ( he has been released from several years in what looks like a Burmese POW camp, quite able portrayed as a hell on earth). I feel sorry for the several Japanese actors who took part in this movie, and all they had to do was look Satanic--they're not up to it either! And yet the film is strangely compelling and the interaction between doctor and patient is potent. The movie is one of those "doctor heal thyself" films in which we see that Burgess is doing all his thinking with a stiff willy and therefore he's blind to the impossibility of helping Kieron Moore, who should have been locked up as soon as dammit instead of being allowed to live on sociable terms with his adorable wife. He's mad as a hatter from POW torture--like John McCain sort of--but worse--homicidal in fact--and also, he's two people, one sweet and earnest, the other a coldblooded killer with ice in his veins.

The subplot is that the other doctors in Burgess' clinic are ganging up on him because he lacks medical training, and this is supposed to be an outrageous abrogation of his genius. Well, as the plot proves, he was no genius, just a cheater, so by the end of the movie I'm taking the low road and saying, Fellow dostors, snobby as you are, you were right!

"Mine Own Executioner" was for me a treat to discover as a VHS product as it rarely turns up on British TV, in fact I can only remember seeing it twice beofre - first when I was 14 and its theme struck me as fascinating, perhaps because as a child I had found the TV series "The Human Jungle" (Herbert Lom, early to mid 60's) fascinating too. The second time I saew it on TV was about 12 or so years later and I got more out of it of course as an adult, I saw it was not just about a man trying to help another man from destroying himself but also the therapist himself has issues of his own to deal with - not totally unlike those of his patient. "Mine Own Executioner" could easily have been an episode of "The Human Jungle" really apart from the fact that the TV show was usually optimistic in its endings. This film is quite bleak but realistic and human, with lots of sympathy. Burgess Meredith is great and the climbing the fire engine ladder sequence is very tense. The 2 relationships - the therapist's and his wife, the patient and his wife, act as counterpoints, and the backcloth to all of the action is really the stress and strain of everyday life in community and how we treat each other. The dialogue is sharp and real, and not a moment is wasted in the screenplay. After the War it seemed that cinema was finally starting to get to grips with issues it shied away from before - mental illness especially - eg "The Lost Weekend" and the "Snake Pit" (both USA) were post war fils with these themes. "MIne Own Executioner" is obviously dated now and will interest only film buffs and fans of B & W cinema / postwar British cinema, but they'll really enjoy it.

Everybody who is involved in mental health care should see this movie. Unfortunately, this film is often difficult to find if you want to buy a copy. It came out in 1947, but does a great job of showing the dangers of working with potentially violent clients who may hurt themselves or others. The film shows the period of time when a client is doing well and the therapist seems confident, but then a sudden psychotic break leads to the client shooting his wife, thinking she was a guard at a POW camp where the client was mistreated in WWII. Realizing he'd killed his wife, the client then takes his own life. The therapist find's himself in court, on trial for the deaths. Actor Burgess Meredith plays the therapist and does a wonderful job. He nearly decides to leave the profession. He also deals with colleagues who sometimes question his degree or the equivalent of "credentials" to do counseling. His character in the film was not an M.D. psychiatrist. There were no licensed psychologists in 1947 as such licensing was not yet required anywhere. An excellent film.

Madacy Records' VHS tape is shameful. Not until I received it, was I informed the tape was made in EP Mode. That should have been a major part of the product description. The video jiggles and looks old. The audio is muddy. Do not buy it. And beware of Madacy products in the the future. What a stinker!

jh in Indianapolis