Amanhecer Fatídico

When the story begins, the executioner at a British prison refuses to carry out the sentence on a main awaiting his maker. To explain why, he describes a series events which make up the rest of the film.

It seems that Eddie (Eric Portman) has just inherited a barge business from his estranged father. A bit later, he meets and falls in love with Frankie (Ann Todd) and they soon marry. However, one of Eddie's employees, Olaf (Maxwell Reed), is a creepy guy who has designs on Frankie....and wherever Eddie goes out of town on business, Olaf shows up and creeps out Frankie. Eventually, he ends up attacking her. Eddie finds out but assumes she was Olaf's lover and a huge fight breaks out. What happens next...well...see the film for yourself.

While this is generally a very good film, I wish that the characters hadn't hemmed and hawed about Olaf. Frankie keeps telling her husband not to go away on business and that she doesn't like Olaf...but no more. And, oddly, Eddie doesn't even ask WHY! These seem a bit odd. Now I am not saying it's a bad film....but odd in how it handles this situation. And no, I am not victim blaming....just that the folks' actions seemed odd.

Overall, a very sad film. Well made, generally, but a real downer in most every way.

An extraordinary, bizarrely cast melodrama which not surprisingly encountered censorship problems at the time.

Reminiscent of prewar French cinema but perfectly capturing the morose mood of a postwar Britain in which barrel organs were still heard in the street, Battersea power station still belched smoke and murderers were still woken at eight for their date with the hangman. Eric Portman was still young and dashing enough to play one of his flawed leads, waifs didn't come more chic than Anne Todd, and bad boys more saturnine than Maxwell Reed in the equivalent to the role played by Dan Duryrea in 'Scarlet Street'.

According to Quinlan this film was held back from release for 2 years because of problems with the censor.Since producers normally worked in co operation with the BBFC this does seem rather strange.Watching the film now and comparing it say with No Orchids For Miss Blandish it is difficult to understand what problems might have arisen.A more likely reason is the sheer grimness of this film.If it was made in 1945 it was hardly likely to appeal to an audience who had only recently been under attach from V2 weapons.So presumably the producers put it on the shelf waiting for a more appropriate moment to show.The film starts with Portman as the hangman approaching the cell of a condemned man and the mood goes down from there,if that is possible.The story is rather a mess and the pairing between Portman and Todd unlikely in the extreme.The ending is about as downbeat as you will ever find.Definitely not a film I would ever wish to see again!

Eric Portman answers an advertisement in the newspaper. His estranged father has died without a will, so he has inherited his fleet of 15 barges. Now that he has some money, he gives his half of the barber shop to Bill Owen. His other job, as a hangman, will take him about six months to work off his current obligations.

Quietly celebrating, he meets Ann Todd. They chat and a timid, misused creature is revealed. They marry and move onto one of the barges. She doesn't like his business trips out of town -- he claims it's for barge contracts; he never tells anyone what it's actually for, except Owen. She likes it even less when Scandinavian Maxwell Reed takes an interest in her that is considerably less avuncular than Edward Rigby.

With a title like this one has, you can tell it's going to be a rather heavy-handed drama, an English Shomin-Geki, and that's what you get. Both leads are acting outside their comfort zones; Portman speaks in clipped monosyllables, and Miss Todd uses a Cockney accent that fades out by the end. Still, there's some heavy-duty acting chops involved, and it works pretty well.

I reckon this has to be the best outing for Ann Todd ("Frankie") that I've seen. Here she plays the girlfriend of Eric Portman ("Eddie") who is really a hangman, but who doesn't want her to know so pretends to be a salesman to explain his frequent, and often overnight, absences from their home on a barge he has inherited. It's during one of those absences that she finds herself the focus of the unwarranted attentions of the rather uncouth "Olaf" (Maxwell Reed) and... Compton Bennett has created a clever piece of cinema here; we are given much of the bones of the story but have to come to a few of our own conclusions as tragedy ensues. According to the BBFC, the film wasn't cut at the time but it doesn't look like it - there are gaps that sort of make sense, but there are quite a few that clearly don't and that disjoints the narrative and occasionally spoils what is otherwise a complex tale. Well worth a gander.