Movie stars of the world owe Burt Lancaster a great debt because his success as a producer encouraged many of them to take a greater role in fashioning their own vehicles (few were as good as him, though). This was his first independent production and it’s a good one – an entertaining film noir, with a brilliant title.
It’s set in England, where you don’t get many film noirs, but it’s still got dimly lit streets at night and shady characters. Lancaster plays one of his doomed losers – a former POW who accidentally kills a man in a fight, goes on the lam, takes a shy nurse (Joan Fontaine, a believable Brit) hostage who eventually falls in love with him, is blackmailed by a witness to the attack (Robert Newton) into committing a murder. Lancaster and Fontaine have a touching romance – she winds up stabbing Newton for him. And it’s got this odd ending where they both agree to turn themselves in.
Director Norman Foster is probably best remembered today for Journey Into Fear a movie whose direction is mostly attributed to Orson Welles, but he does a good job here – I think he is underrated. Some fascinating British touches like the fact Lancaster is flogged when he goes to gaol, and the MacGuffin at the end is black market medicine (shades of The Third Man).
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