Pit of Darkness

This is a essentially a 45 minute film which has been painfully padded out to almost 80 minutes, and it shows, as by the end I was beyond caring about the main protagonist, William Franklyn and the whole safe cracking, amnesia saga. Franklyn is a too smooth and languid character to hold the attention of the audience. His one dimensional, underwhelming character, squeezes the life out of this crime drama and so I was left merely observing the acting of the lovely Nanette Newman and Moira Redmond who have a tough time playing opposite the wooden lead. These cheaply made films traded on the usual criminal stereotypes which popped up in countless British crime films in the 50's and early 60's, hence the appearance of Michael Balfour playing the usual low life criminal, complete with cigarette dangling from the mouth. Sorry, but this film dragged so much that I was left praying for the end.