An odd sort of movie - you can see why it wasn't a big hit (it lost money) but it's interesting; John Houseman, who produced, always seemed to try to make something of quality, as did director Fritz Lang. Stewart Granger whinged about the final result - he did that about a lot of the films he made - but he was right in some respects: it should have been a black and white lower budgeted film, when MGM added colour and CinemaScope. Still, there is plenty of atmosphere, with the kid walking through the graveyard, and seeing corpses swinging, and ghoulish faces.
This falls into the sub genre of "small boy becomes enthralled with dodgy dashing elder man adventure tales" - Treasure Island, The Fallen Idol, Hunted, The Spanish Gardener are other ones. Jon Whiteley is the boy who goes to stay with smuggler/local lord Stewart Granger, who does deals with aristocrat George Sanders (very good), and romances a bunch of women, including Sanders' wife (Joan Greenwood) and a voluptuous woman (Viveca Lindfors).
Of the characters, only Sanders, Granger and Whiteley get much screen time. It's a bleak tale in a way - Granger is Whiteley's father (it's implied) but Whiteley never finds this out; Granger is mortally wounded (resulting in a touching ending), there don't seem to be too many other nice people; the world is one of corruption and lacks warmth; the ending, with Whitley waiting for Granger's return "because he's my friend" is a bit of a downer because we know the guy's gone off to die. (NB I wonder if this inspired the makers of City of Men.) The storyline also tends to be repetitive - Whitley gets in trouble, is rescued by Granger, gets in trouble again.
Still, Granger was rarely better cast (he did well in these enigmatic roles) - although James Mason probably would have been better. Whiteley is effective and Sanders and Greenwood are always good.
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