US army officer, Captain Dillon (Robert Arden), runs out of fuel on a country lane on his way back to base. He goes to a nearby mansion and meets the glamorous Laura (Anne Heywood). He asks to use the telephone to call for help and takes an immediate liking to Laura who is suffering abuse from her alcoholic husband, Tom Wilton (Basil Dignam), who beats her up. The local army base is about to go on maneuvers and, in order to keep the local people happy, the army decides to hold a party at the base. Dillon sees an opportunity to see Laura again by offering to deliver the invitations, which he does and it is then when Laura persuades him to murder her husband so that they can be together. At the party, Dillon gets Wilton drunk and when he leaves alone in his car Laura is waiting down the road and flags her husband down. Meanwhile, Dillon has slipped away from the party and they knock him out, put him in his car and drive it into the lake to make it look as if he lost control of it in his drunken state and drowned. But is their perfectly planned murder as foolproof as it appears and is Laura the innocent, long suffering wife she claims to be?
If ever there was an example of a British film to prove that we could not come anywhere near to doing American film noir then this is certainly it. But, taken on its own merits, this is still an above average crime thriller from quota-quickie specialists The Danziger Brothers. Its tautly directed by the talented Paul Dickson and, despite the shoestring budget, succeeds in creating an engaging little film. The screenplay is by Brian Clemens who would go on to produce and write many classic episodes of the classic spy series The Avengers and here he ensures that the audience gets an unexpected twist at the climax.
The Depraved was as the support feature to Richard Widmark's wartime courtroom drama, Time Limit, on the Gaumont-British circuit in 1957.
If ever there was an example of a British film to prove that we could not come anywhere near to doing American film noir then this is certainly it. But, taken on its own merits, this is still an above average crime thriller from quota-quickie specialists The Danziger Brothers. Its tautly directed by the talented Paul Dickson and, despite the shoestring budget, succeeds in creating an engaging little film. The screenplay is by Brian Clemens who would go on to produce and write many classic episodes of the classic spy series The Avengers and here he ensures that the audience gets an unexpected twist at the climax.
The Depraved was as the support feature to Richard Widmark's wartime courtroom drama, Time Limit, on the Gaumont-British circuit in 1957.