Escape by Night (1953)

User Rating:

4.9/10   

Director:

John Gilling

Writer:

John Gilling (writer)

Release Date:

December 1953 (UK)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Plot:

An Italian racketeer on the run in London holes up in a disused theatre with a hard-drinking journalist out to get the full story. |

Plot Keywords:

Reporter

Cast

Bonar Colleano	...	Tom Buchan
Andrew Ray	...	Joey Weston
Sid James	...	Gino Rossi
Ted Ray	...	Mr. Weston
Simone Silva	...	Rosetta Mantania
Patrick Barr	...	Insp. Frampton
Peter Sinclair	...	MacNaughton
Avice Landone	...	Mrs. Weston
Ronald Adam	...	Tallboy
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Martin Benson	...	Guillio
Eric Berry	...	Con Blair
Ronan O'Casey	...	Pietro

Runtime:

79 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Norway:12

Company:

Tempean Films

Trivia:

The exotic Simone Silva sings two songs in this movie: Should I Care and Why. Both tunes composed by Barbara Killalee, the original music by the famous British band leader Stanley Black. Miss Killalee and Mr. Black teamed one more time to do another song for another movie: No Way Out for the film Three Steps to the Gallows (1953).

Atmospheric But Dreary Crime Drama

This crime drama has some decent atmospheric settings and touches, but the rest of the movie is far too dreary to be satisfying. Most of the story concerns Tom Buchan, a journalist who wants to get the life story of Gino, a notorious crime boss. The two hide out together in an abandoned theater and make plans for Gino's getaway, while Gino tells Buchan about his life. They use a naive young boy to send messages to those outside. The abandoned building setting is done pretty well, and is quite suitable to the story. There is also some rather good use of lighting and other detail to set an appropriate tone.

Unfortunately, most of the rest of the movie is just not very good at all. The biggest problem is with the characters. The journalist is supposed to be the hero, but he is self-centered, irresponsible, vain, and not nearly as clever as he (or the script-writer) thinks he is. The rest of the characters are either offensive brutes or are inexcusably foolish. The generally weak, stale dialogue doesn't make things any better. The story itself has some interesting features, but moves too slowly, and without any worthwhile characters to follow, there are many drab and lifeless stretches. The climactic sequence does hold some drama, and could have been quite good - but all the characters are such losers that there just isn't any reason to care about what happens to them, so the climax loses much of its impact.

There are some good features to "Escape By Night", and it could have been a much better movie with better characters and writing. But as it stands, there is really no reason to watch it unless you are a big fan of any and all crime/gangster movies, regardless of their quality.