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The List of Adrian Messenger

Play trailer Poster for The List of Adrian Messenger 1963 1h 38m Mystery & Thriller Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
64% Tomatometer 14 Reviews 66% Popcornmeter 500+ Ratings
British army Col. Anthony Gethryn (George C. Scott) is contacted by his old friend, Adrian Messenger (John Merivale), to investigate 11 men, whose names Messenger provides. After a plane carrying Messenger is blown up by a mysterious perpetrator, Gethryn determines that the men on the list had been prisoners of war in Burma during World War II -- and that someone connected to a minor British aristocrat (Clive Brook) is methodically murdering each man on the list.

Critics Reviews

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Variety Staff Variety 02/05/2008
An even more damaging miscue is the utilization of stars who are hidden behind facial disguises in fundamentally inconsequential roles. Go to Full Review
Tom Milne Time Out 02/09/2006
Saddled with an incredibly creaky whodunit plot, this thriller should really have been set in Victorian times to accommodate its villain with a passion for disguises, its Holmesian detective in a bowler hat, its murder in a fog-bound Limehouse. Go to Full Review
Sergio Benítez Espinof 09/04/2019
A 'smaller' film from John Huston still serves to give lessons in planning, execution and narration, and 'The List of Adrian Messenger' is no exception. [Full Review in Spanish] Go to Full Review
Dwight MacDonald Esquire Magazine 08/12/2019
If one takes the film straight, it's hard to believe that the man who made The Maltese Falcon also set this turkey waddling. Go to Full Review
TV Guide 02/05/2008
3.5/4
Convoluted but absorbing. Go to Full Review
Jake Euker F5 (Wichita, KS) 02/18/2007
3/5
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Audience Reviews

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Steve D 01/26/2024 Effective thriller with a great cast. See more delysid d 03/23/2022 a confusing but wholesome movie with kirk douglas and george c scott See more Matthew D 08/15/2021 Big stars are cast for the sake of casting them. Most of them are in cameo rolls where they don't get to do anything. The movie itself wasn't very satisfying either. See more @MilloTPue 02/28/2021 Entertaining, but it doesn't captivate you. See more deana p 11/27/2020 great movie dunno why it's rated so low See more @TMProofreader 02/01/2019 The best mystery movie ever made! See more Read all reviews
The List of Adrian Messenger

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Movie Info

Synopsis British army Col. Anthony Gethryn (George C. Scott) is contacted by his old friend, Adrian Messenger (John Merivale), to investigate 11 men, whose names Messenger provides. After a plane carrying Messenger is blown up by a mysterious perpetrator, Gethryn determines that the men on the list had been prisoners of war in Burma during World War II -- and that someone connected to a minor British aristocrat (Clive Brook) is methodically murdering each man on the list.
Director
John Huston
Producer
Edward Lewis
Screenwriter
Philip MacDonald, Anthony Veiller
Distributor
Universal Pictures, MCA/Universal Pictures [us], Universal International Pictures
Production Co
Universal/Universal Int
Genre
Mystery & Thriller
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
May 29, 1963, Original
Release Date (DVD)
Jan 11, 2010
Runtime
1h 38m
Sound Mix
Mono
Aspect Ratio
35mm, 1.66:1