An escaped convict tries to hide out at his former lover's house but she has since married and is far from keen on the idea.
Googie Withers is on top form as the discontented wife of an older man whose sexy, dangerous ex-lover (John Mccallum) comes back into her life after escaping from jail.
A tough-as-boots snapshot of post-war London.
The drama is managed without condescension and with enormous skill.
A terrific sense of atmospheric foreboding is contributed by Douglas Slocombe’s noirish cinematography and Georges Auric’s fate-filled score.
Hamer catches the postwar mood quite superbly, a world of rationing, bombsites and depression: that Blitz spirit has vanished.
A splendid, melodramatic slice of East End life.
It's a vivid, exciting snapshot of people going about their lives with a stoic hopefulness in the Age of Austerity, a now vanished world captured for ever in a film as good as, and arguably better than, anything comparable being made at the time on the continent or in the States.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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