CINEMA
Make Me An Offer. (Empire) Make Me An Offer takes us to the heart of the antique-dealing business, a heart which Wolf Mankowitz has dissected into two equal portions, those of chicanery and sentimentality. Peter Finch is the Wedgwood expert who while practising his trade with Sheffield sharpness dreams of one day finding the unique green Portland vase which was stolen from a collection. Though poor aria heading straight for a stomach ulcer from financial worry, he knows that if ever he finds the vase he will not part with it for any money in the world, but will keep it for the edification of his soul. In the middle of duping his colleagues his eyes grow misty at the very idea, which proves that even antique dealers have an aesthetic side to them. Another idea, that of returning stolen property to its rightful owner, does not, oddly enough for so sensitive a man, occur to him. Mr. Finch manages to turn a not very prepossessing character into an attractive one, and he is ably sustained in his double dealings by Finlay Currie, Meier Tzelniker, Alfie Bass, Wilfred Lawson and Guy Middleton, also by Ernest Thesiger who, as a nonagenarian with a murky past, gives a remarkable impression of genuine antiquity which any Wedgwood vase would envy. On the more innocent side there is Rosalie Crutchley, hard-pressed wife, and Adrienne Corti, scatter-brained smasher of art treasures, both frankly a little bit tiresome. Leading us into untrodden fields where the browsing is fresh, this film, despite an arid script and moderate direction by Cyril Frankel, nourishes the mind even if it is rather tasteless.
VIRGINIA GRAHAM
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