Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Richard Attenborough | ... | Tom Manning | |
Cathy O'Donnell | ... | Jill Manning | |
Derek Farr | ... | Peter Tanner | |
Ian Hunter | ... | Geoffrey Tanner, Q.C. | |
Maurice Denham | ... | Horace Clifford | |
Bruce Seton | ... | D.C.I. | |
Harry Welchman | ... | Mr. Justice Harrington | |
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Kynaston Reeves | ... | Mr. Munro |
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Lily Kann | ... | Mrs. Zunz (as Lilly Kann) |
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Eithne Dunne | ... | Mrs. Evans |
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Cheryl Molineaux | ... | Irene Evans |
Totti Truman Taylor | ... | Miss Ribden-White | |
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Robert Adair | ... | Mr. Pettigrew |
Grace Arnold | ... | Mrs. Higgs | |
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David Hannaford | ... | Ernie Higgs |
Taxicab driver Tom Banning is led to an abandoned bomb-site by an eight-year-old girl as an April-fool prank. The girl is later found murdered and Manning is picked up by Scotland Yard for questioning and is later arrested and charged with murder. The trial is scheduled for London's Old Bailey. Manning's wife, Jill, convinced he is innocent, fights for and wins the sympathy of Council-for-the-Defense Peter Tanner, and he is opposed at the trial by his father, prosecuting-attorney Geoffrey Tanner. The trail is presided over by Justice Harrington, whose wife is in the hospital undergoing an operation. It soon becomes evident, following the testimony of prosecution-witness Horace Clifford, that the evidence points to Manning's guilt. During a recess, Peter Tanner sees Clifford outside the courthouse, giving candy to a young girl. Farr identifies the candy as being the same brand as that found on the murdered girl. The judge's wife has died, but the trial resumes with Tanner recalling ... Written by Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
A melodrama that looks at the legal system that suddenly adds dashes of Perry Mason into the mix. Richard Attenborough plays a local friendly cabbie who gets trick or treated by a gang of kids early in the morning. He goes after them more in jest and later helps one of the girl's looking for her lost doll in the streets of post war London which still was littered with bomb sites
When the young girl is found dead Attenborough turns out to be the wrong man in the wrong place but all the evidence, circumstantial it might be points to him being the murderer. Of course we know it's not him as we see a man in a bowler hat shown in silhouette who approached he girl after Attenborough left the girl and this shadowy man pops up later on. It really wants you to shout out 'its that man again' every time you see him
Attenborough's wife has a hard time to get a criminal solicitor who believes in his innocent, only later a dogged barrister reluctantly turns detective in order to unmask the real culprit
The film has a very realistic location setting of the post war London with kids running about on their own. Even the reluctance of the lawyers to take the case on was very much on the mark. The latter part of the film based on some random circumstances allowing the Barrister to think it the murderer is someone else and nearby is rather convenient but the film just about gets away with it.