Review of The Long Memory

Clearly Mr John Mills either was not aware of that piece of Eastern wisdom or he chose to ignore it.In view of his incarceration for 12 years for a murder he did not commit he would be less than human if he did not at least contemplate bloody vengeance against those who conspired to put him away.In this brilliant little Hitchcockian noir director Mr Robert Hamer makes full use of the wind - scoured mudbanks of the Thames Estuary and peoples them with an almost Dickensian selection of semi - grotesques living in barges,wooden huts and railway carriages on the riverside scrubland. Mr Mills,having fallen on hard times,lives in a timber shack conveniently close to a ramshackle cafe occupied by more sinister characters than you could shake a stick at. His former girl - friend - one of his persecutors - has now married the senior police officer involved in his case and ,by contrast lives a life of almost sybaritic luxury in a big 1930s villa.She and her husband are determinedly middle - class and have a little boy who wears a quartered school cap.They use linen napkins with silver rings for breakfast.She is played by Miss Elizabeth Sellars in typical "1950s repressed English Housewife" mode with plenty of clutching hands and pleading glances.Her husband,Mr John Mcallum,is that almost extinct movie species a detective with a conscience.He runs his hands round his jaw in moments of great emotion,but he doesn't have those too often. Mr John Slater and Miss Thora Hird provide some amusement as an ill - matched couple but the film is mainly a triumph for Mr Mills,whether stalking the mean streets of Gravesend or bearding the villain in his den at the Pool of London.Incidentally,watch out for the great Mr Harold Lang making the most of a small part as viciously camp blond-rinsed minder at the bad guy's HQ. The Thameside chase is reminiscent of M.Jules Dassin's largely forgotten "Night and the City",but the overall feel is most definitely that of Mr. Hitchcock.I doubt if Mr Hamer was consciously constructing a "hommage", but The Master's imprint can be seen in many of the exteriors and in the relationship between the detective and his wife. Mr Mills has one exquisite faux pas near the end.Up till then his character has been resolutely genteel,but,as he lies bleeding from a bullet wound,the detective asks how he is."It's only me arm",he grits, reverting in extremis to the Lower Deck. "The Long Memory" deserves a place alongside "The Blue Lamp" and "It always rains on Sundays" in the pantheon of British noirs which,with the passing of time,are being recognised as the seminal works that have hugely influenced the TV and movie industry in the second half of the 20th century and beyond.