I'm surprised that so many people seem to be disappointed with the ending of this film. The story is typical of a 1950s British crime film with good performances by all - but this ending makes it a bit different. It has the inevitable American lead, in this case the excellent Lloyd Bridges, to make it attractive to the US. The story is seen through to the expected ending but then we find that the story was not perhaps located where we thought it was. It does not mean that the story, still a fictional one of course, becomes any less entertaining because of it. As I get older I realise that an "unconscious" mind, so to speak, is capable of great detail and can set many random and complex problems for which it then tries to find solutions, it must then try to resolve at least some of them before it returns to full consciousness. The clues are there, remember the limping man being followed to the riverside, where did he go? Yes, the shock of the ending is sudden, but when you wake up it's usually like that, all may be forgotten in a flash. Did the writer of the original story or the director think of it like that, or was it just an attempt to be different, a joke, just for the sake of it? I don't know but I liked it.
Review of The Limping Man
