A man has been murdered and the police want to get their hands on Earl Cameron, who quarreled with the victim shortly before. He's disappeared, and when street kid David Hemmings runs across him, intends to stay that way. When he had first come to London from the West Indies, he trusted everyone. Now he trusts no one, not even David Hemmings, who promises to bring him food.
Half procedural mystery, half indictment of race relations, the remarkable thing about this movie is the assured performance of Hemmings. He was fifteen when he made this movie, but he looks and acts much younger. The cast is filled out with other well know British actors, like James Hayter as Hemmings' grandfather, and the script by John Baxter and Geoffrey Orme makes its points without belaboring the issues. The result is a complicated and important film masquerading as a simple one.
