L'alibi dell'ultima ora

Time has no pity, no sympathy, no joy and no sorrow. It's passage denotes the brevity in which the living inhabit the earth. In TIME WITHOUT PITY, a young man is dong time in prison for a murder he did not commit. A correctional institution is about to put a stop to that young man's time at the behest of the State. A father caught between the daunting task of fighting the system for more time, and forgetting time altogether at the bottom of a whisky glass. A broken woman mourning the loss of time never spent with one who's out of time. Every character in this drama is lost somewhere in their own guilt ridden space and time, but director Losey makes sure his audience is always aware, littering the screen with watches and clocks ticking like a giant timebomb about to explode as the desperately pathetic father searches for a clue to disable the alarm. Lost in an alcoholic haze that is almost dreamlike in it's ability to paralyze action, he clumsily attempts to win back for his son the time he let slip away. Is it too late? An incredibly edgy, self-aware film, TIME WITHOUT PITY clearly states its objection to the State as executioner. From the opening scene, we know the son did not commit the murder, but neither the State, "You must keep your visit short . . . we don't want to upset the prisoner," the Church, "He's given himself over to more compassionate hands," or the anti-capital punishment advocates, "We're not interested in whether young Graham is innocent or guilty," seem to have a specific interest in the individual. To make matters worse, young Graham himself has given up hope and when his father pleads, "don't give up," he asks, "What difference would it have made if you had died when you were my age?" And this question gets to the core of the film; it's resonance heavily influencing the final pivotal scene.

A bizarre psychogram of a series of characters, all of whom are disturbed in their own manner. Losey delineates the characters through a series of images which are so effective because they're so simple.

A cheap B-movie. The choppy dramaturgy and editing, viewed from today's perspective, conveys a nervousness and an intensity to the film that was probably lost on a 50's audience. No happy end, but a just and noble one.

Michael Redgrave plays David Graham, the alcoholic father of a young man (Alec McCowen) on death row in "Time Without Pity" from 1957. The film also stars Ann Todd, Leo McKern, Peter Cushing, Paul Daneman, Lois Harker, Joan Plowright, and Renee Houston.

Graham's son Alec is accused of killing a young woman. David was not around for the trial, due to a stint in rehab (which doesn't seem to have taken). Alec is very hostile to him now.

Meanwhile, Alec's surrogate family, the Stanfords (McKern, Todd, and Daneman) are at odds - Mr. Stanford wants nothing to do with the case or Alec, where his wife and son want to help. It seems to David that everyone is keeping secrets, and he has to find out what they are before his son is hanged.

Okay film but by today's more subtle acting standards, way over the top in some cases. Michael Redgrave is wonderful, desperate, fighting for his son's life as he battles his habit. Leo McKern, a magnificent character actor best known as Rumpole of the Bailey, yells his way through his role. He's in good company with the loud, overdramatic music. Ann Todd gives a lovely performance.

There are a couple of jarring editing mistakes you won't miss.

Michael Redgrave, the head of a great acting dynasty of children and grandchildren, is always worth seeing. See it for him.

Exiled from the USA because of the blacklist Joseph Losey did some of his best work in the United Kingdom and he has a really good thriller here. Not much of a mystery other than the question is why couldn't the police see who it was in the first place.

Young Alec McCowen is now on death row after his girlfriend was found strangled to death in her family's home where he had been spending the weekend. Like father like son, Michael Redgrave an alcoholic writer who has been living in Canada comes back to the UK to visit with his son now on death row. He's been convicted of her death and was too drunk at the time to offer any meaningful evidence in his defense.

It was at Leo McKern's home where the deed was done. He's a foulmouthed ill tempered automobile manufacturer who terrorizes his family like wife Ann Todd and son Paul Daneman who is McCowen's best friend. He's also a bit unbalanced and everyone around him is afraid.

The real suspense is in Redgrave battling his own demons and not returning to the bottle. The pressure to do so is great, but Redgrave summons up enough strength to resist. It's a masterful very subtly cerebral type performance. He and McKern take the acting honors.

For fans of Redgrave and McKern this is a must.

Rather hysterical but engrossing and very well-acted melodrama (particularly by Michael Redgrave, a BAFTA nominee, and Leo McKern), ostensibly a murder mystery but with a manifest position against capital punishment.

Interestingly, the culprit is known from the very beginning but, saddled with an alcoholic hero, one is never sure whether he'll be able to prove his son's innocence of murder; the denouement, then, is terrific - as unexpected as it is ironic. Losey's expressionist style (aided by Freddie Francis's chiaroscuro cinematography) is in full sway here: actually, according to film critic Gerard Legrand - writing in "The Movie" - this was the film were the director really came into his own; I can't vouch for that myself since I have yet to watch three important films he made earlier i.e. THE PROWLER (1951) and M (1951), both Hollywood productions, and THE SLEEPING TIGER (1954), Losey's first effort following his relocation to Britain.

It's undeniably a powerful film though relatively verbose (it was adapted from a play by Emlyn Williams); like I said, Losey drives his actors to fever pitch and he has chosen a most capable cast - including Ann Todd, Alec McCowen, Peter Cushing, Renee' Houston, Lois Maxwell, Joan Plowright, Peter Copley and Richard Wordsworth! The only false note throughout, perhaps, is to be found in the score by Tristram Cary - which is so over-the-top that, at times, it even drowns out the dialogue!