Dick Bogarde

(On Cable TV, January 2022) In many ways, Libel should be more interesting than it ends up being. The story of an English aristocrat veteran with amnesia about his wartime years, it kicks into high gear when he’s accused of not being who he is—that he’s another person having usurped the noble’s identity. The ensuing trial takes us back to wartime POW camps when everyone starts having doubts about who he says he is. Dick Bogarde plays the protagonist (and, in a casting choice designed to keep everyone guessing, also the man he’s accused of being), while Olivia de Havilland plays the increasingly doubtful wife. While Libel’s first act is set largely against the stately backdrop of upper-class British estate, the rest of the film goes for POW camps and courtrooms. It all sounds promising on paper, but in practice it’s more annoying than anything else: we can’t quite care for the lead character, which doesn’t help a film in which we’re asked to root for him. It wraps up nicely, though—even if the road to get there passes through some very convenient amnesia. It’s not that bad, but Libel should have been much better, at least in reaching its own potential.