Mudflats of Kent's barren landscape (the suitably named Gravesend, to be precise) and then John Mills at Waterloo Station. He's carrying a brown paper parcel the tell-tale sign of a man just out of clink and he's being tailed by John Horsley (Doc Morrissey "the wizard of the aspirin" - from Reggie Perrin, Perrin fans).
Back at the mudflats, Mills pipes aboard a stationary barge. An oddball tries to befriend him - "Nice to have a friend down here. It's a bit lonely sometimes. Would you like a cup of tea?" but Mills is having none of it. He's so hell bent on revenge that he's probably going to Hell.
Here, Hell is a memory you can't let go of.
In flashback, we see his fiancé's (Elizabeth Sellars) father who's helping to ship someone on the run to Rotterdam. Mills gets involved with a rampaging Boyd (John Chandos) and the boat goes down in flames. He's convicted of murder when his fiancé and Pewsey (John Slater), a bronchial moron, lie in court that there was no "other man" on the boat.
Twelve years later, Mills' fiancé is married to the police officer involved in the original case (John McCallum). . . . . .
Mills is superb in this. He doesn't do very much just simmers away. His emotions are reflected in the bleak and desolate landscape. Characters are monosyllabic; strange derelicts peopling a landscape of riverside scrublands that almost anticipates Beckett. The dirt and decay of Mill's home is contrasted with his former fiancé's family show home. It's like looking at the negative of a photograph.
All the main characters face a moral dilemma. Elizabeth Sellars lied in court to protect her father. Her decision to lie means that her husband will have to resign they'll lose their home she'll go to prison. She decides to leave the country (if only her old man was still around to help her!) A few hours later and she's trying to jump under a train. Her life is quite literally unravelling because of her original decision.
Most interesting of all is when the "dead" Boyd reappears. We are now watching a film about a man wrongfully convicted of murdering someone he didn't murder who isn't actually dead about to murder the man he was wrongfully convicted of killing.
Back at the mudflats, Mills pipes aboard a stationary barge. An oddball tries to befriend him - "Nice to have a friend down here. It's a bit lonely sometimes. Would you like a cup of tea?" but Mills is having none of it. He's so hell bent on revenge that he's probably going to Hell.
Here, Hell is a memory you can't let go of.
In flashback, we see his fiancé's (Elizabeth Sellars) father who's helping to ship someone on the run to Rotterdam. Mills gets involved with a rampaging Boyd (John Chandos) and the boat goes down in flames. He's convicted of murder when his fiancé and Pewsey (John Slater), a bronchial moron, lie in court that there was no "other man" on the boat.
Twelve years later, Mills' fiancé is married to the police officer involved in the original case (John McCallum). . . . . .
Mills is superb in this. He doesn't do very much just simmers away. His emotions are reflected in the bleak and desolate landscape. Characters are monosyllabic; strange derelicts peopling a landscape of riverside scrublands that almost anticipates Beckett. The dirt and decay of Mill's home is contrasted with his former fiancé's family show home. It's like looking at the negative of a photograph.
All the main characters face a moral dilemma. Elizabeth Sellars lied in court to protect her father. Her decision to lie means that her husband will have to resign they'll lose their home she'll go to prison. She decides to leave the country (if only her old man was still around to help her!) A few hours later and she's trying to jump under a train. Her life is quite literally unravelling because of her original decision.
Most interesting of all is when the "dead" Boyd reappears. We are now watching a film about a man wrongfully convicted of murdering someone he didn't murder who isn't actually dead about to murder the man he was wrongfully convicted of killing.