Thunder on the Hill (1951)

Thunder on the Hill
Directed by Douglas Sirk
Written by Oscar Saul and Andrew Salt from a play by Charlotte Hastings
1951/US
Universal International Pictures
First viewing/Criterion Channel

A really good detective never gets married. — Raymond Chandler

This is a well-made melodrama and mystery but the story didn’t quite work for me.

Sister Mary Bonaventure (Claudette Colbert) is a nursing sister at a hospital in the English country side. She joined the convent to assuage some not very well explained guilt with regard to the suicide of her sister. She is a very competent and well-respected nurse. One of the lay nurses hates her for always being right.

As the story begins the hospital is overloaded with refugees from a major flood. Among them are Valerie Carns (Ann Blyth) and her jailers. Valerie is on the way to Norwich to be executed for murdering her brother. She is very bitter.

Sister Mary softens her up and begins to be convinced Valerie is innocent as she has claimed all along. She begins investigating despite many orders not to interfere. In my opinion, the identity of the real culprit is evident way too early in the story. With Gladys Cooper as the Mother Superior.

First you have to get over Colbert’s casting as a nun. She is quite good though, unlike Blyth who overdoes it. The dialogue also is overblown. It kept my interest though and has some good noirish cinematography by William H. Daniels.