Wealthy industrialist Robert Rawley (Stephen Murray) is determined to honour his fallen son with a memorial pavilion at the county cricket club. He is visited by the local squire who implores him to make a general dedication for all the boys in the village who were lost during the war but Rawley is immovable. This all consuming passion as well as his belligerence does nothing to quell his unlikeability in the village.
Lance Comfort ended up giving bits of brilliance to the Bs he was often given but this movie showed he was a fine atmospheric thriller director. Most of the action takes place in the majestic house with dimmed staircases, balconies and shaded rooms. Once Sally Gray arrives, the sunny scenes turn distinctly noirish - she's magnificent, a blonde vision but with sultry overtones. Hollywood would have loved her. She plays Angela, wife of lost son Simon but by looks and intimation it is clear that she doesn't remember Simon in quite the same shining light as his father. Robert is also blind (I thought Beatrice Campbell was excellent as his younger, second wife - she tries so hard to persuade him to show his softer side to the village but to no avail).
Suddenly as night falls they have a visitor, just keeping inside the shadows - it is Simon and from his gestures and speech he is not a returned hero, more an opportunist spiv!! Nigel Patrick is tremendous as the bad penny son - he sets about instantly cajoling one person, then another. He has only returned for money and not for any filial affection. The scene where he is relating the hard time he has had as he stayed on the straight and narrow while the film shows him as a coward, not above picking women's purses to finance his needs, is powerful!!
Once the father realises the son has returned he starts to be humanized, he sees Simon as he really is - cruel and a bully. He also starts to soften toward the women in the family. It will take all in his power to help him through - the talk in the village as the movie opens is of a murderer on the loose - the man whom Simon coshed when stealing his car has died!!
Sally Gray did start out as an actress in her teens but a nervous breakdown kept her off the screen for years. When she returned, in the mid 1940s, she put in her strongest bid for stardom!
Very Recommended!!
Lance Comfort ended up giving bits of brilliance to the Bs he was often given but this movie showed he was a fine atmospheric thriller director. Most of the action takes place in the majestic house with dimmed staircases, balconies and shaded rooms. Once Sally Gray arrives, the sunny scenes turn distinctly noirish - she's magnificent, a blonde vision but with sultry overtones. Hollywood would have loved her. She plays Angela, wife of lost son Simon but by looks and intimation it is clear that she doesn't remember Simon in quite the same shining light as his father. Robert is also blind (I thought Beatrice Campbell was excellent as his younger, second wife - she tries so hard to persuade him to show his softer side to the village but to no avail).
Suddenly as night falls they have a visitor, just keeping inside the shadows - it is Simon and from his gestures and speech he is not a returned hero, more an opportunist spiv!! Nigel Patrick is tremendous as the bad penny son - he sets about instantly cajoling one person, then another. He has only returned for money and not for any filial affection. The scene where he is relating the hard time he has had as he stayed on the straight and narrow while the film shows him as a coward, not above picking women's purses to finance his needs, is powerful!!
Once the father realises the son has returned he starts to be humanized, he sees Simon as he really is - cruel and a bully. He also starts to soften toward the women in the family. It will take all in his power to help him through - the talk in the village as the movie opens is of a murderer on the loose - the man whom Simon coshed when stealing his car has died!!
Sally Gray did start out as an actress in her teens but a nervous breakdown kept her off the screen for years. When she returned, in the mid 1940s, she put in her strongest bid for stardom!
Very Recommended!!