Benny steals Caroline's purse and finds a letter revealing her affair with married surgeon Mannering. Benny blackmails them, leading to murder.Benny steals Caroline's purse and finds a letter revealing her affair with married surgeon Mannering. Benny blackmails them, leading to murder.Benny steals Caroline's purse and finds a letter revealing her affair with married surgeon Mannering. Benny blackmails them, leading to murder.
- Sally
- (as Madeline Burgess)
- Wine Waiter
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaDirectorial debut of Ken Hughes. Hughes claimed years later that the entire film had been made on a budget of just £10,000.
- Quotes
Inspector Carson: Well, Miss Blayne, I think this is the man we're looking for. In which case we shall be extremely grateful to you.
Caroline: He's known to you then, is he?
Inspector Carson: Yes, he is. Although we only know him as a petty criminal, a wide boy, he's had his toes over the line of the law for a long time. It's a very narrow line. And with people like him, one step and they soon find themselves with both feet on the wrong side.
- ConnectionsRemade as Bodgie (1959)
There is some fine acting by Sydney Tafler as the oleaginous Benny, and by Susan Shaw and Melissa Stribling as the central female characters, Molly and Caroline, who finally come face to face by coincidence in a meeting that gives Caroline her chance. Ronald Howard is billed rather more prominently than I felt his part actually justified; nominally the chief detective, he has in fact very little to do.
There are limited interior sets, but some clever and effective shots (was that cat specifically staged, or did it just wander up to actor Colin Tapley at an appropriate moment?) within the resources available. Tension is genuine during many of the scenes, and although the protagonist behaves badly more or less from start to finish we end up feeling for him as he is trapped and apparently betrayed.
As with tonight's double-bill companion "To the Public Danger", however, the film suffers in its final moments from what appears to be a desire to insert an explicit public-information moral into the dialogue in case the audience had failed to get it from the story alone: unfortunately it's not made terribly clear just why Benny buys the gun in the first place. (Moral support, presumably?)
- Igenlode Wordsmith
- Dec 21, 2009
Details
Box office
- Budget
- £7,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 7 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1