Sydney Tafler is a petty thief, a 'wide boy', who sells stolen nylon stockings to make ends meet. While taking his girl Susan Shaw to a classier place than their usual hang-outs, he spots a couple and thinks he has seen the man somewhere before. When the woman, Melissa Stribling, goes away for a bit, she leaves her handbag at the bar. Tafler manages to steal her wallet from it. Besides a decent amount of money, he also finds a letter in it, exposing the man, renowned and married doctor Colin Tapley, as having an affair with Stribling. Tafler decides to do a little blackmail. With deadly consequences...
The movie poster's tagline is 'Her lust for money stopped at nothing... even murder!' but this woman is nowhere to be seen in the movie. There is no femme fatale here. Tafler ('Assassin For Hire', 'The Lavender Hill Mob') however is one of those noir grifters like Widmark's Harry Fabian, living from day to day, always out for a quick buck trying to find the big pay day. He sees an opportunity for a lot of extra money, he takes it, and he's screwed. Tafler's great and convincing without over-playing it, he's just another guy trying to make a living, albeit a slightly illegal one. The rest of the cast is decent, but it's Tafler who carries this movie.
This was director Ken Hughes's first movie ('The House Across The Lake', 'Joe MacBeth') but he does really well here, the movie has a good pace and by focusing almost squarely on Tafler, it's easy to not worry too much about the more illogical actions of, especially, Tapley. Hughes and DoP Josef Ambor ('Wrong Number') even manage to make the night time scenes, in abandoned alleys and a pedestrian bridge across railroad tracks at Paddington Station, come alive with shadows, wet cobblestones and a lot of locomotive smoke. Really nicely done, and adding to the overall enjoyment of the movie. All in all, it's maybe a bit too straight-forward plot-wise to truly be a hidden gem, but well worth watching for Tafler and the cinematography. 7+/10
The movie poster's tagline is 'Her lust for money stopped at nothing... even murder!' but this woman is nowhere to be seen in the movie. There is no femme fatale here. Tafler ('Assassin For Hire', 'The Lavender Hill Mob') however is one of those noir grifters like Widmark's Harry Fabian, living from day to day, always out for a quick buck trying to find the big pay day. He sees an opportunity for a lot of extra money, he takes it, and he's screwed. Tafler's great and convincing without over-playing it, he's just another guy trying to make a living, albeit a slightly illegal one. The rest of the cast is decent, but it's Tafler who carries this movie.
This was director Ken Hughes's first movie ('The House Across The Lake', 'Joe MacBeth') but he does really well here, the movie has a good pace and by focusing almost squarely on Tafler, it's easy to not worry too much about the more illogical actions of, especially, Tapley. Hughes and DoP Josef Ambor ('Wrong Number') even manage to make the night time scenes, in abandoned alleys and a pedestrian bridge across railroad tracks at Paddington Station, come alive with shadows, wet cobblestones and a lot of locomotive smoke. Really nicely done, and adding to the overall enjoyment of the movie. All in all, it's maybe a bit too straight-forward plot-wise to truly be a hidden gem, but well worth watching for Tafler and the cinematography. 7+/10