I Thank a Fool (1962) Reviews

• I feel like one

  blanche-22007-11-26

  Beautiful scenery is the highlight of "I Thank a Fool," which stars Susan Hayward, Peter Finch and Diane Cilento. Finch plays a prosecutor who manages to get Hayward sentenced to prison for the mercy killing of her boyfriend. When she gets out, she has to change her name, but still, she can't get a job. Finch reappears and hires her to live in his home and take care of his unstable wife (Cilento). When she winds up dead, suspicion falls on Hayward. This is a very uneven film that ends somewhat abruptly. It could have used a couple of scenes right before the last one. One of the posters here said the ending was no surprise. Well, it was to me. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention. The acting is good, with Hayward in a role that calls for her to be quite somber. Peter Finch is excellent. He's very compelling and deliberately keeps his character ambiguous. Diane Cilento has the role with all the histrionics. She's exquisitely beautiful and delicate, and one does feel great sympathy for the character. All in all, this was a rather blah experience.

• Wayward wife

  dbdumonteil2008-05-08

  People like me who are Susan Heyward's fans would not miss that."I thank a fool" begins as a melodrama,a genre where Heyward won renown ,but soon becomes a "psychoanalytic " thriller ,in the grand tradition of the forties " Freudian" flicks ("Cat People" "Spellbound" "Gaslight" "secret beyond the door" "dark mirror" "leave her to Heaven" and countless others) with echoes of Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" thrown in for good measure. This does not renew the genre but it is very well acted by the two leads and an excellent supporting cast.The lines are often intriguing ,particularly when Diane Cilento tells Heyward they are both in a prison.The ending is a bit artificial and finally disappointing,compared to those of the movies I mention above,but the movie should appeal to Susan Heyward's fans as well as psychological thrillers buffs.

• Who's The Fool?

  bkoganbing2011-01-26

  Susan Hayward and Peter Finch could have been a great screen team and should have gotten a much better story than I Thank A Fool. I'm betting Susan did this one for a trip to the British Isles. This is one which casts Susan Hayward as a doctor who goes to prison as a result of a euthanasia done by Hayward on her lover and teacher. Of course she loses her license to practice medicine. So imagine her surprise when on release from prison, she's offered a job as a nurse companion to Diane Cilento, a very disturbed young woman. To make things even more bizarre the husband who offered the job to her is the lawyer who prosecuted her in Old Bailey, Peter Finch. If that's not a bizarre plot premise I don't know what is. As for Finch he just says he believes in giving people a break. Diane Cilento has some very good scenes as the wife. As it turns out she's got good reason to be disturbed. The subject of incest is very delicately broached here with the appearance of her bottom feeding father Cyril Cusack. The film does better by Cusack and Cilento than for its leads. A story way beneath the considerable talents of its stars.

• Fine Irish scenery, not UK.

  duncan-282001-12-28

  This movie was filmed in Crookhaven, a small fishing village (pop. 38) in West Cork. The village pub, O'Sullivan's Bar, has a large number of stills from the film on its walls. Many of the villagers were employed as extras in the film and some of them still live in the village. The current owner of the bar, Billy O'Sullivan, is pictured in one of the stills with Diane Cilento.

• Susan Hayward and Peter Finch in MGM's I Thank A Fool

  AndersonWhitbeck2012-05-26

  Two of the more competent actors of their era were Peter Finch and Susan Hayward who star in this film shot in the British Isles at MGM's British Studio with some stunning location photography. Academy Award Winner Susan Hayward looking as beautiful as ever inherited this movie after Academy Award Winner Ingrid Bergrman left the project, and Hayward who considered Bergman her favorite actress said"If It's Good Enough For Bergman It is Good Enough For Me". Always professional in her work Susan Hayward was a commanding actress one who dominated every scene Hayward was in. I am not sure I followed the story line of 'I Thank A Fool' and that maybe that Susan Hayward half way during the shoot objected to the Euthanasia theme and the story was a changed, so all of this seems a bit muddled. This movie is strictly for Susan Hayward fans.