No Way Back

A raw little drama enhanced by excellent location work by cameraman Robert Navarro of London in the winter of 1949 still bearing the scars of the blitz and the burden of postwar austerity.

Produced and co.written by Derrick De Marney as a vehicle for his brother Terrence when he was still young enough for the resemblance to be apparent to his debonair elder brother when smartened up (while the wild-eyed character actor he returned as in the sixties can be seen in his disheveled moments).

Eleanor Summerfield looks little younger here than she did twenty years later, but is allowed to be both touching and glamorous.

Terence de Marney is a boxer with a long and undistinguished record. His injuries have caught up with him, and he's out of the fight game. His total take for the years, concussions, and damage amount to a hundred pounds; he hadn't put anything in savings when it was coming in. Girlfriend Eleanor Summerfield will stick with him, and so will the admiration of children, but whatever judgment he might have had once upon a time is gone. So he agrees to a little job proposed by small-time hoods, and when it goes wrong, he is amiably loyal to them. That loyalty does not go the other way.

It's a bleak little story from a magazine short that succeeds because of its honest bleakness. Stefan Osiecki directs his sole feature from a script he and de Marney co-wrote. It's populated with characters who can be summed up in single short sentences, played by mostly obscure actors, shot at Nettlefield and released by Eros. Like most British Noirs, it doesn't have shadowy conspiracies, but it does have a sour grunginess that seems less polished and more real.

The first couple of reels lead you to believe that this is going to be another of the boxing dramas which were popular at the time.Although the portrayal of John Sales as a boxing promoter is badly acted and shifts of anti semitism.After Terence De Marneylooses the fight and sight of an eye it lurches into noir territory.De Marneys liaison with Eleanor Summerfield is very reminiscent of They Live By Night.There are some interesting location shots of post war London.The market might be Petticoat Lane.As has been mentioned by other reviewers the climax is poorly played out.The police fire tear gas into the room and De Marney breaks a window to let the gas out.It is all nonsensical and lacking in any original thought or idea

Unfortunately, documentary filmmaker Stefan Osieki's foray into fictional form results in a lacklustre addition to the U.K. post-War Spiv' movie cycle (a series of films with roots in the U.S. Gangster films of the 30s, but with a far more negative and unglamourised portrayal of their criminal protagonists). When over the hill former lightweight boxing champion Johnnie 'The Croucher' Thompson loses a fight and the sight of one eye to a younger opponent, he is forced to give up his ring career and retires on a pittance once his grasping manager has whittled down his purse and outstanding career winnings. Dumped by his brassy wife, Johnnie sinks to the bottom of a whisky bottle before being hoisted back on his feet by unsavoury East End villain Jack Sleat, whose girlfriend Beryl soon warms to Johnnie's innate good-heartedness (perhaps because he reminds her of the decent life she's left behind). When Jack gets wise to this burgeoning relationship, he seeks to set up Johnnie in a jewel robbery, and things take several turns for the worse for the various characters who find themselves on the wrong side of the law. With naturalistic post-War London street locations, complete with glimpses of the blitzed city settings, this is rooted in a distinctly grimy low-life milieu. However, it seems that director Osieki is more content with larding on the tragic grandeur complete with staging techniques out of Greek tragedy (e.g. offscreen confrontations with the forces of law and order, and an unseen jewel robbery - an influence on RESERVOIR DOGS, perhaps!), and a mise-en-scene which seems to be striving for an East End rendition of the French street poetry as evidenced in the likes of LE JOUR SE LEVE. Unfortunately, given its relatively routine tale, this film ultimately fails to exert much dramatic grip beyond the predictably melodramatic, and with little to lift it out of the ordinary, remains fairly run of the mill stuff and not a patch on the likes of other lesser known post-War U.K. 'Spiv' movies such as NOOSE or DANCING WITH CRIME. Still, relative scarcity makes it worthy of passing interest, even if the often low-key moodiness fails to engage the emotions over the relatively brief running time.