Tomorrow at Ten

A pre-stardom Robert Shaw kidnaps a rich kid and locks him in a room with a golliwog in which he has stitched a time bomb that is due to go off at the titular time. He's suitably creepy in a film that starts out strongly but which gets bogged down in some lengthy moral/ethical philosophising despite some unexpected plot twists. A visibly ageing John Gregson huffs and puffs as the uncompromising cop tasked with finding the kid.

Detective Inspector John Gregson gets called in on a kidnapping. Robert Shaw has kidnapped a rich man's son and hidden him some place in London, with a bomb that will explode at 10 the following morning. Let him catch his plane to unextraditable Rio, and when he's safe, he'll phone in plenty of time. The man whose son has been abducted agrees. Gregson's superior agrees. Gregson thinks it's handing license to every would-be kidnapper in the country. He thinks he can break Shaw. He's making a good start, when the rich man attacks Shaw in a frenzy, rendering him unconscious.

It's a well performed little thriller, with the hurry-up-and-wait sequences very telling, and a few familiar faces in small roles; William Hartnell is present in a throwaway cameo, paired with Renee Houston. There's the stereotypical last minute race to save the boy, but even that ends with a twist.

Not bad, especially because of the exceptional actor who was Robert Shaw. John Gregson is also very good, natural. All the actors are very good, which makes the film bearable, since everything is just talk, just boring dialogue.

Suspenseful thriller in which Robert Shaw gets the lion's share as a kidnapper of a wealthy man's only son.The story almost entirely focuses on the villain and (it's rare ) tries to explain the reason why he did it .It's not only a matter of money as the viewer little by little discovers .The things themselves play a prominent part ,the ticking of the clocks or a jumping jack .The kidnapper is at hand ,under the police's eye ,like in more modern thrillers such as "oxygen" ;and of course there is a quarrel between the scared father and the police .The whole film is a race against the clock ,for the boy is in a house with a time bomb.

A surprisingly engaging feature sees John Gregson as a detective ("Insp. Parnell") brought into investigate the kidnap of the son of the wealthy "Chester" (Alec Clunes). Interestingly the kidnapper "Marlow" (Robert Shaw) has locked the child into an attic room in an unknown London address then gone to the man's home to demand the ransom in person - so we know all the characters from the start. Midway through, he there is an altercation and suffice to say the policeman has to try and track down the child from scratch. It's quite suspenseful, and the tight-knit cast keep the story moving well with quite a degree of jeopardy building, too.