The Left Hand of God (1955) - film review

A Catholic priest, Father O’Shea, arrives at a small mission in a remote province of China in 1947.  He receives a  lukewarm welcome from missionaries Dave and Beryl Sigman, who, having endured a series of small disasters, expect their mission to close in the near future.  O’Shea has worries of his own and makes a visit to a missionary in a neighbouring town to tell his story and ask for advice.   O’Shea reveals that he is an American pilot who, after being shot down over China during WWII, was captured by the notorious war lord Mien Yang.  For the past few years, O’Shea - whose real name is James Carmody – has been working for Yang.  Then, one day, Yang’s men shot dead a priest named O’Shea, conveniently providing Carmody with a way of escaping from his ruthless employer...

The Left Hand of God was the film that reunited director Edward Dmytryk and actor Humphrey Bogart after their immensely successful collaboration on The Caine Mutiny (1954), which is regarded by some as Bogart’s best film.  The Left Hand of God certainly has its strengths, particularly the adept use of CinemaScope to convincingly evoke its rural China setting, but it is also beset by some notable flaws that greatly diminish its standing, even among die-hard Bogart enthusiasts.    

When Humphrey Bogart made this film, his declining health, accentuated by alcohol and tobacco addiction, had become all too apparent.  His co-star Gene Tierney also had serious health problems – she had been suffering from mental illness which made it virtually impossible for her to work.  Casting two sick people in the lead parts of a film probably wasn’t the smartest move, but, to be fair, Bogart and Tierney, whilst not at the height of their form, do pretty well with the material they are given.  

The real failings with this film lie almost entirely in the script department.  The characters are unconvincing  not because the performances or direction are bad but because they are underdeveloped and speak in the most tedious platitudes.  Even less thought has gone into the plot, and so the film just seems to drift, never reaching any dramatic highs, merely fizzling out at the end, like an expensive firework that fails to ignite.  Worse, there are the most egregious and hackneyed attempts at moralising, so lacking in sincerity and intelligence that you can only wince at the ineptitude of the screenwriter.  If only Dmytryk had asked someone of the calibre of Graham Greene to write the screenplay, The Left Hand of God could have been a very powerful study on how faith and experience can lead to a spiritual renewal, rather than the limp and muddled curiosity it ended up as.

© James Travers 2008

Write a review for this film...

What do you think of this film?