A trois pas de la potence

Excellent British Film Noir "3 Steps to the Gallows" follows American Sailor Scott Brady trying to visit and then just locate his brother while docked in London. Mary Castle as the lounge singer at the Gay Mask club gives this film an extraordinary aura. Her abbreviated performance of "There's No Way Out" paves the way for Brady to commence making contact with all of the characters involved in the plot. Pay attention - no one is above suspicion. Brady is more than a bit of a bull in a china shop but the rest of the cast is more subtly believable. This moves along at a good pace with no dead time. Worth seeking out.

As some other reviewers have mentioned, THREE STEPS TO THE GALLOWS is a highly superior British film noir which doesn't let up from beginning to end. A twisty turny mystery style plot line throws up some familiar tropes - it seems half of British crime films made during the 1950s consisted of criminal enterprises utilising nightclubs as their lairs - but runs away with them thanks to a fast pacing and a complete refusal to deviate from the thriller aspects of the storyline.

American actor Scott Brady plays a sailor who gets some shore leave to visit his brother, only to discover that he's disappeared. He soon uncovers a sinister, conspiracy-style mystery that will lead to his brother's imminent execution, so it's a race against time to prove his innocence. Along the way he tangles with femme fatales, dogged detectives, and various henchmen, often slugging it out with the latter in some engaging fight scenes.

Brady is a slightly boring main actor but the supporting cast make up for deficiencies, with Ferdy Mayne and Michael Balfour on particularly strong form. Ballard Berkeley plays a cop and must have been one of the most typecast actors of the era. Director John Gilling, who would later direct the likes of THE REPTILE for Hammer, does a sterling job, but the real star here is Welshman Paul Erickson, whose debut script is never less than compelling.

A slick little thriller full of twists and turns superbly shot on location by co-producer Monty Berman that makes early fifties London look like a thrilling den of deception and intrigue.

I should have liked to have seen more of Gabrielle Brune as a shady lady pivotal to the plot but usually offscreen; while towards the end of an eventful narrative Trinidad-born Harcourt Curaçao (billed as 'Harcourt Nicholls') suddenly enters the fray as a resourceful and athletic helpmate to the hero.

As we all know, starting in the early 1950s American mid-level 'name' actors and actresses started to find films harder to come by here, and any number of them ventured to England to make starring vehicles that might have an international market based on their marquee names. George Raft did it, as did Dane Clark, George Brent, Hillary Brooke, Lloyd Bridges, and many others. Scott Brady did, too. Most of these were released through Lippert and enjoyed reasonable success, and almost all of them are eminently forgettable. Not this one, though.

This is actually a very fast-moving and action-packed thriller, with enough mysteries woven into it for two films. Brady plays a seaman who arrives in England to enjoy some time with his brother, only to learn that his brother is due to be hanged for murder a scant three days hence. Brady's rush investigation to clear him involves many characters (every one of whom is acted, as is the British wont, like it was Academy Awards time), and there are wheels within wheels within wheels. Indeed, by the time the film ends, you realize you've been subjected to more twists than most Agatha Christie novels provide, but you accept them because they are well-presented, well-written and well-acted. Unlike most such British films with an American actor 'hook', this one is slam-bang all the way, and one particular fistfight that Brady has (there are several) with a nightclub owner and three or four henchmen goes from that manager's office, through a hallway, out into the nightclub and then onto the dance floor itself. (It's kind of like a shorter fisticuffs version of the concluding SCARAMOUCHE duel.)What makes it so impressive is that Brady is doing all his own fighting and stunts and looks terrific doing so. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that this is the best starring performance I have ever seen out of Lawrence Tierney's younger brother, and he was always a decent (or better) actor, although never a major star. The female interest is provided by another American temporary ex-pat, Mary Castle, as a woman of some mystery and much beauty. (In fact, in every shot she appears in, she looks enough like a blonde Rita Hayworth to be her illegitimate sister.) The film seems to involve just about constant location shooting, in boxing arenas, gyms, restaurants, foggy-but-real streets, back alleys, and finally at some kind of big British exposition or fair, and the photography is grainy, noirish, and just plain terrific most of the time. If it is all wrapped up a little too tidily in the end, well, we never complain when Dame Agatha does the same.

I give it a high 8 rating because of the pure look of the film, the very realistic physicality of it all, the terrific character actors on display throughout, and mainly I guess, because it seems to me the very best of the dozens of such British semi-quota quickies that brought over American mid-level stars for a one-film-stand in London. Given what it was intended to be, and the somewhat brutish elan with which its intentions are accomplished, this is a very considerable achievement.

Scott Brady is a merchant mariner who gets off ship in England to visit his brother. He finds his brother in prison, doomed to hang in three days for murder, unless Brady can make his way through a murky underworld conspiracy that involves smuggled diamonds.

I find it interesting, the number of British programmers that begin with a sailor of some sort making port, hoping to see a relative, and discovering he is in jail or dead. It's a nice technique for plopping the protagonist down in a plot in a new situation, forcing him to deal not only with the plot, but the part of society he's caught up in. Usually it's a guy; Howard Hawks liked to use the situation with a woman coming into a tight-knit community of men -- Jean Arthur in ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS; Angie Dickinson in RIO BRAVO are two of those movies. However, in those movies, it's the exploration of that society that is the point of the movie; sure, there's a plot, but what it turns into is a story about bonding.

Brady is good in the role, and the story is well told, but while the mystery aspect is good, it's a decent programmer, and little more... which is fine.