Tread Softly Stranger

TREAD SOFTLY STRANGER is a tense and immersive British film noir featuring a headlining performance from Diana Dors at her most sultry and alluring. The story is a basic love triangle compounded by money worries, which lead to robbery and murder, all set within a grim and run-down northern industrial town. The opening scenes, which show off a fabulous and elaborate rooftop location complimented by Dors and her morning exercise routines, are great and racy stuff indeed.

I always feel that when a British B-movie thriller gets everything right then it's head and shoulders above rival American fare and that's the case here. This tale was originally adapted from a play but the cinematic version gets everything right and in particular the cast is a fine one.

Dors obviously holds the attention with her bombshell performance, but the real star of the thing is the underrated Terence Morgan (CURSE OF THE MUMMY'S TOMB) who propped up many a B-movie with his villainous turns. He has more depth to his character than usual and does very well with it. George Baker - TV's Inspector Wexford - plays the straight role and is very nearly as good, and a young Patrick Allen rounds off the cast.

... she's not only so sexy (enjoy her first shot), but she plays well a sensitive young woman, Calico, lost between two brothers : she first was close to Dave (a fragile employee losing his temper to conquer the sweet sexy Calico) but eveything changes when tough Johnny arrives (kind of adventurer, handsome man never losing his temper, he makes me think of Ray Danton). The problem of this movie is Dave's character, always yelling when he panics, neighbours must have heard eveything about stealing and murder, and this is a major fault of the script and direction. But Diana Dors is the main attraction of the movie and the ending is especially gripping. Patrick Allen is also great as a determined parent's victim. With more work in the script and direction, it could have been a better movie, but is still entertaining.

I confess that I know nothing about Director Gordon Parry. As far as I can tell, the rather good FRONT PAGE STORY, starring Jack Hawkins, is the only other film he has directed that I have watched.

Both films have strong, structured stories, but TREAD SOFTLY, STRANGER has the advantage of Diana Dors in the greatest form ever, even managing to deliver a credible performance. That said, plaudits must go to George Baker and Terence Morgan for playing two brothers understandably smitten with Dors - a temptress who wants money and gets them to steal for her, even if one (Baker) only does it to help his brother out of a tough situation and can clearly see Dors for the gold digger she is. Morgan is more impressionable and becomes a puppet in her horny hands, despite knowing that she does not love him but loves his brother instead.

Baker leaves London because of a bad debt and seeks refuge in his backwater birthplace, Rawborough, a small railway stop town with a factory that keeps spewing fumes, like a smouldering hell consuming its residents, some of whom question Baker's return from "lovely London" to dingy Rawborough. The brighter of the two brothers, Baker sensibly destroys the money that his brother stole from the factory where he works... too little too late. From the moment the brothers broke the law, and in particular when an old factory security guard is accidentally shot dead, the gods of Greek tragedy (and the British production code which wanted no bad examples to encourage the already rising crime rate) predetermine punishment for them.

Baker has the smarts to know that police need proof in order to charge them, but panicking Morgan cannot resist blind justice.

Dors' final declaration that she will wait for Baker floats off with the breeze swirling around the rooftops of the bedroom she rents.

Solid chiaroscuro cinematography from the excellent Douglas Slocombe, arresting script from Minter and O'Dell.

Definitely worth watching. 8/10.

This is not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination. But it IS fun, lots of fun. The characters are real people with all the frailties and peculiarities that make them interesting. Even though I half expected the outcome it didn't really matter because the way there was so much fun to watch. Nobody was perfect, all good or all bad, just real. Of the two brothers one began as shady and questionable character and the other as an upright citizen but as the film progressed they switched places. The transition was believable and based on facts clearly brought out in the script. Diana Dors was the fulcrum about whom the entire exercise revolved and she did an excellent job playing a woman who is confident of her appeal, willing to use it, but is anything but one-dimensional.

So what's not to like? I can't help but think that in the hands of a better director this could have been much, much better. Those same elements that made it fun could have made it great had they been handled more expertly. Dors' sensuality was shamelessly exploited and don't get me wrong, I just as shamelessly enjoyed every bit of it. But there were some superfluous shots that did nothing to advance the plot and appear to have been inserted just to give us another look at this gorgeous woman. And then there was the theme song, played to distraction. I for one, don't get the connection. What do the words "Tread Softly Stranger" have to do with the relationship between two brothers and a woman?

But in the long run, even though I can't rate it any higher, I heartily enjoyed this film and will gladly do so again. For those who haven't yet seen it do so immediately.

I consider that this title is the late Diana Dors best film and I have quite a few in my DVD collection.Produced in 1958 when she was at her peak she has a memorable scene when she recounts her lowly slum- like upbringing to George Baker of how she made her way "out of the gutter up onto the pavement".It reminded me of an Oscar Wilde quote by Lord Darlington from "Lady Windermere's Fan" "...some of us may be in the gutter but we are looking up at the stars".1958 was the year that the wonderful "A Night to Remember" was made and I spotted three actors from that film in "Tread Softly Stranger", namely Joseph Tomelty" (Joe Ryan) as Dr. O'Loughlin, Russell Napier (Potter) as Capt. Stanley Lord and Thomas Heathcote (Sgt. Lamb) as a 1st class smoking room steward.Diana was well supported by Terence Morgan and George Baker and I disagree with a previous reviewer, it did not have an Anglicized/American script - I checked the nationality of the two scriptwriters James George Minter/Denis O'Dell before writing this review.The film also had an authentic bleak northern industrial landscape.Remember also we have many Irish people working in our country.

When George Baker burnt the stolen money and flushed the embers down the sewer and disposed of the revolver I thought the brothers may have succeeded in their robbery, but of course the censor stepped in like they did in the 1950s to ensure we citizens kept on the straight and narrow.Overall I rated it excellent and it kept my interest all through and I rated it 8/10