It wasn't uncommon for producers in the UK in the 1950s and 1960s to want to bring over an American star to make it easier to get one of the American studios to distribute the movie in the US. The latest such film I watched is I Thank a Fool.
The American star in question was Susan Hayward. She's playing Christine Allison, a Canadian who moved to the UK in part to become a doctor, and in part to follow her boyfriend. Said boyfriend is, as the movie opens, terminally ill in hospital, and Dr. Allison hastens his entrance into the next world by giving him an overdose of something when the duty nurse could easily have given him the proper dose and let him die "naturally". Even though it's a mercy killing, it's still technically medical malpractice, which means that a trial is necessary. Stephen Dane (Peter Finch) prosecutes the trial, with Allison being found guilty of manslaughter, sentenced to prison, and stricken from the doctors' register.
Fast forward 18 months. Christine is released from prison, but in need of a job, since she can't legally go back to being a doctor. But wouldn't you know it, there's somebody who could use a person with a physician's skills, and that person just happens to be... Stephen Dane! He's got a wife who might be suffering from a mental illness, and he needs somebody with medical skills to be a companion for the wife. Why am I thinking of The Chalk Garden here?
In any case, Christine takes the job and meets Stephen's wife Liane (Diane Cilento), who certainly seems to have some problems. One of those problems involves anything that spins like a circle, which is played up at several points during the movie. Liane's mental problems started back in her native Ireland, when she and her father, Capt. Ferris, were in a car accident in which her father died. Dane rescued her, at least metaphorically, and brought her over to the north of England to live. But she has those apparent mental problems, and Stephen doesn't want to have her committed to an asylum, which is also where Christine is convenient. A regular doctor would have the power to have Liane committed -- but of course Christine is no longer legally a doctor.
Christine quickly gets the impression that things are not quite what they seem, in no small part because Stephen seems to be terribly controlling and doesn't want Liane to go out on her own. All sorts of little things happen, and there's also the impression that one of the workers in the stables, Roscoe (Kieron Moore), might be trying to get involved with Liane. But things really take a turn when a man shows up claiming to be... Capt. Ferris (Cyril Cusack)! Now Christine really believes that Stephen has sinister motives, to the point that she's willing to help Liane run away to Ireland to see her father. This isn't quite the reunion you might thing, and Stephen is close behind, leading to shocking complications.
I Thank a Fool is a melodrama that starts off with the interesting premise of euthanasia, which would have been an even more controversial topic back in the early 1960s than it is today. But it devolves into something that at times is ridiculous and implausible. I'm guessing Susan Hayward took the role in part for the chance to take a working vacation in Ireland (the Ireland-set scenes were filmed at least in part in Ireland). She does the best she can with the material, and she's not bad. Peter Finch is reasonbaly good as the morally ambiguous man, and Cusack is professional too. But the script. Oh boy are the plot twists a mess.
So watch I Thank a Fool for some acting performances, or for the location shooting. But don't expect the best of plots.
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