À tout péché miséricorde

Casting directors in the late forties unfortunately did not have the services of working class actors like Terence Stamp & Michael Caine to draw on but had to rely on graduates of various drama academies who had drilled out of them the various regional accents from the characters who appeared in their films.The upshot of this was that when the parts demanded realistic working class voices there was not the pool of actors to draw on who had been schooled with received BBC pronunciation which was prevalent at the time.Richard Todd appeared to have a cross between a Scottish and Irish accent while James Hayter's Glaswegian accent was unintelligible.Had this film been produced in the mid 60s the producer could have drawn on more realistic characterisations.

That said I enjoyed today seeing this film for the first time on Youtube.com.I especially liked Richard Todd playing Guy Gibson in "The Dam Busters" (1954) and "the Hasty Heart"(1949) with Ronald Reagan.The other reviewers have adequately summarised the plot of the subject film which I rated 6/10.I also liked the fruity voice of Valentine Diall who acted on stage (Son of Oblamov) & t.v. with the late Spike Milligan.

This is another expertly directed film noir by Cavalcanti to go along with the somewhat darker "I Became a Criminal". This has a more complex storyline. An aspiring young writer goes slumming to broaden his experiences and becomes smitten with a bar floozy, who's carrying on with a couple of other guys. After a narrow escape from one of these lovers at her apartment the night before, he reads in the morning paper that she's been murdered but does nothing when he learns that the wrong man has been accused. The acting is uniformly good and a number of odd camera angles add to the tension in the movie. I liked the way the movie seamlessly transitions its focus from Stephen Murray, the writer, to Rosalyn Boulter, the murdered woman, to Richard Todd, the accused murderer. A negative point was that the courtroom scenes were shallow and lacked any defense for the accused. As a point of social commentary I couldn't help but feel how little we've progressed in helping those that have done their time assimilate back into society with decent jobs: the same barriers exist today as depicted in the movie. This is well done with a satisfying conclusion. Recommended.

Stephen Murray is the aspiring writer "Christy" who decides that he needs to leave his cosseted life with his family, and get some experience of real life. To that end, he starts frequenting working men's pubs where he alights on "Frankie" (Rosalyn Boulter). She's quite a lively girl, with plenty of other "men friends" including "Herb" (Richard Todd) and "Jim" (Michael Laurence), the latter gent doesn't take kindly to her sharing her attentions around. On one evening, when he arrives at her flat only to find an escaping man scarpering down the back alley, things turn tragic and "Herb" is soon stitched up for the crime. We know who the real perpetrator is, and we know that "Christy" also knows, but he chooses to watch events unfold for "creative purposes"! Spool on fifteen years and "Herb" is out, and looking for answers... None of the performances are really distinguishing - indeed, there are some pretty dodgy Scots accents around, but the overall consistency amongst the cast and the well paced, solid, direction from (Alberto) Cavalcanti keep this moving along quickly. There's an effective contribution from George Hayes as the "Mad Artist" who has taken over the home of the victim - a role he plays, briefly, with some skill. With a better cast, it might have been a better film - but as it is, these folks do a better than decent job.

Ernest Raymond was a priest who served in the First World War as a chaplain at the front, and after the war he started writing novels and produced many. They are of mixed quality, but some of them are exceedingly good, like "We, the Accused" and this one, which was made into an equally gripping film by the Brazilian Cavalcanti with Richard Todd in his first great part. The novel is almost Dostoyevskian in character, dealing with crime and injustice and its unsurveyable consequences, and the film sticks to its very human character, staying all the time on the level of basics of human life, society and circumstances. The actors are all perfect, and no wonder that Richard Todd later made such a distinguished career, starting like this. The cinematography is also striking in its very dark character with deep shadows and sharp photography, often with close-ups, which gives the whole feature a somewhat expressionistic trait. This is a unique classic of its kind, railway workers, shabby pubs, loose women, intimate local insights, and to top all this a crazy alcoholic painter, who actually gets the last word. In its gutter character, it is a pearl shining the more brightly for shining and rising in the gutter.

When a prostitute (Ketchen) is found dead in her apartment, a boyfriend burglar is wrongly convicted for her murder (Todd), evading arrest but eventually caught when police are tipped by his gullible new girlfriend (Plunkett). Released after serving 15 years, Herbert marries Rosie and sets out to clear his name, locating two of Frankie's regulars and likeliest suspects, one an abusive stoker (Laurence) with a crafted alibi (Hope), the other a noted dramatist with breeding and now a family (Murray) who can clear the ex-con but refuses to tarnish his own sterling reputation.

After Dickens, nobody would depict the warm, underbelly of the English social stratum, aka, the common class, better than Brazilian, Alberto Cavalcanti (b), not on film, he whose salad day forays (1910s, 30-40s) into that songful, sometimes seedy world would later flavor his films. Premiering just two years after Al's superb but rarely aired Trevor Howard noir, I Became a Criminal (47), players Brennan, Merrall, Hope & Saunders returning in cast, Trespass stars Richard Todd in his first credited role, Stephen Murray and Patricia Plunkett getting top-bill. Lengthy for a post-war CD (95m) with few daylight scenes, accounting for the "dreary" descriptions of casual critics, yet, this movie is entirely engaging in its compelling story (a ration of empathy in the final conflict would've pleased), human touches and every performance, Rosalyn Boulter as Frankie "Sorry for Nothing!" Ketchen and Todd being especially impressive, the latter who'd be Oscar nom'd for his next feature, The Hasty Heart (49) but could've just as easily been invited to the RKO Pantages for this terrific showing (3/4).