And Then There Were Four

16mm Film - And Then There Were Four - USA 1950

Direction: Frank Strayer

Script: Charles Palmer

Camera: Walter Strenge

Music: Eliot Daniel

Cast: Sharon McManus, Barbara Wooddell, William Gould, Helen Spring, John Parrish, Edythe Ann Gold, Dick Anderson, Pat Wright, Walter McGrail, Ruth Lee, John Calkins, Verne Smith, and others.

This film actually belongs to the genre of road safety films, but it is also an above-average Hollywood melodrama of the 1950s. In the American original, the narrator is none other than James (Jimmy) Stewart, who introduces us to five unconnected people who are to be observed on camera for a day. The narrator informs the audience that at the end of the day, one of these five people will die in a car accident. Each of them drives a different model of car and has different human weaknesses that can lead to serious accidents: One drives a racer, the van has faulty brakes, etc. The suspense is heightened by the fact that you know in advance that one of this group will die, but the sad denouement only comes at the very end.