The Fallen Idol

I watched The Fallen Idol last night, based on a story by Graham Greene, directed Carol Reed who also directed The Third Man and Our Man in Havana based on Greene's work.

It starred an Anglo-French child actor playing the son of the French ambassador. He has befriended the butler who unwisely shares certain secrets with him. He wants to dump his wife and marry his girlfriend. When his wife dies in an accident, the kid thinks he killed her. He lies to police trying to protect him but makes it worse. He later tries to tell the truth but police won't listen to him which is really just as well because, again, he would have only made things worse.

I guess the moral is, don't worry about destroying your credibility because you probably don't understand what's going on anyway.

I didn't notice the kid's French accent. He sounded English to me. I was impressed when he slipped effortlessly into French.

You know who should have watched this thing? Balloon Boy's parents. It would have taught them the perils of trying to get a child to keep your secrets.