It's nice to see modern movie-makers going back to old themes from time to time; there comes a point when the mind balks at another film about alienation or arrivisme or the Indian-Negro-Jewish problem. Still, old problems and new films don't necessarily and up to good theatre, which is one of the unintentional lessons of The Visit.

Based on a story by Friedrich Duerenmatt, The Visit poses the question of morality's subservience to the dollar (or, in this case, the dinar). A wealthy Yugoslavian widow (Ingrid Bergman) returns after twenty years to the small town from which she had been driven, disgraced and pregnant, by the perjured testimony of her lover, Serge Miller. Now, she offers to free the town and its inhabitants from their poverty at a stroke--in return for Miller's life. After hearing their first indignant refusal, she settles down to wait.

Clearly this poses something of a moral problem for the good townspeople; it's not every day that Murder Inc., offers to go public. But director Bernard Wicki for some reason keeps his camera resolutely trained on Miller, the victim. As the town, by quick stages, turns on him, Miller covers a reasonable--but hardly unexpected--course from confidence to apprehension to terror.

But the townspeople are presumably not Mafiosi, but rather--according to a righteous defense by their mayor--decent, humane people incapable even of considering such an offer. Yet the town council, headed by the mayor himself, ultimately revives the death penalty and condemns Miller--with the town's unanimous approval. The moral collapse of the mayor, of the schoolmaster (who seems not to care about the money), of the bishop--these Wicki slights.

Flabby characterization doesn't help, but the film's compelling fault is its total lack of tension. Underneath a sometimes-bizarre exterior beats a heart of purest melodrama: will Reason and Humanity save Miller from the whirling ripsaw? The answer is really never in doubt, and melodrama without suspense is like borsht without beets.

Even if the widow's emotions have been crippled--as she contends--by her betrayal by Miller, Ingrid Bergman's portrayal is flat as a steppe, alternating facile hatred with superficial charm. Anthony Quinn does better as Miller, in a roomier role. Several relatives of the producer seem to be cast in the minor parts. Maybe Wicki knew what he was about after all.