The film opens in war-time Liverpool during an air raid. Bernard Lee, evidently a happily married man with a child, visits a young girl, with whom he may or may not have been playing doctor. In any case she asks him for a lot of money because she's going to have a baby. Lee's face falls.
Dissolve, and we see Lee at home, playing with his child, and being arrested for the girl's murder. Lee winds up in the Crowbar Hotel, while his wife takes their little boy to America, where he grows up to be Van Johnson. Johnson discovers for the first time that his father had been convicted of murder. He delves into old newspapers to find out what happened. At the library, he runs into Vera Miles, who arranges a room for him at her landlady's house. Then he sets about trying to prove his Dad's innocence. As is usual in private eye films, his search leads from one slightly odd character to another.
This is the second film that Johnson made with Miles in England, isn't it? There was at least one more that featured the unforgettable name of "Janet Murch." Could have come from Dickens. Where do the Brits get these names and locations from? Names like Doris Buckle and places like Upper Mulch? At any rate, the principal performances are fine. This is 1959 and a quarter of a century after Van Johnson was a heart throb for the mass of teen-aged girls. Vera Miles, ex Miss Oklahoma, is lovely and very appealing. It's a little difficult to swallow Bernard Lee as a murderer. He's "Q" in the James Bond movies, and when he's not being "Q", he's being the cheerful sergeant who gets shot at the end of "The Third Man." No, I don't see him as a killer.
It's not an uninteresting film. It's well directed by Jack Cardiff, usually a better photographer ("African Queen", "Black Narcissus") than a director. There are weaknesses in the screenplay. Johnson and Miles fall desperately in love after three conversations. And Johnson, despite his obsession, has no real reason to believe his father was innocent except the obstinacy of the police and the local politician. At times he seems half crazed. I'm not sure whether that's a weakness, because most of the characters in this story have multiple dimensions, even the murderer and Lee himself, a coarse ex inmate devoting himself to debauchery.
On the whole, not bad except for that loose-limbed plot.
Dissolve, and we see Lee at home, playing with his child, and being arrested for the girl's murder. Lee winds up in the Crowbar Hotel, while his wife takes their little boy to America, where he grows up to be Van Johnson. Johnson discovers for the first time that his father had been convicted of murder. He delves into old newspapers to find out what happened. At the library, he runs into Vera Miles, who arranges a room for him at her landlady's house. Then he sets about trying to prove his Dad's innocence. As is usual in private eye films, his search leads from one slightly odd character to another.
This is the second film that Johnson made with Miles in England, isn't it? There was at least one more that featured the unforgettable name of "Janet Murch." Could have come from Dickens. Where do the Brits get these names and locations from? Names like Doris Buckle and places like Upper Mulch? At any rate, the principal performances are fine. This is 1959 and a quarter of a century after Van Johnson was a heart throb for the mass of teen-aged girls. Vera Miles, ex Miss Oklahoma, is lovely and very appealing. It's a little difficult to swallow Bernard Lee as a murderer. He's "Q" in the James Bond movies, and when he's not being "Q", he's being the cheerful sergeant who gets shot at the end of "The Third Man." No, I don't see him as a killer.
It's not an uninteresting film. It's well directed by Jack Cardiff, usually a better photographer ("African Queen", "Black Narcissus") than a director. There are weaknesses in the screenplay. Johnson and Miles fall desperately in love after three conversations. And Johnson, despite his obsession, has no real reason to believe his father was innocent except the obstinacy of the police and the local politician. At times he seems half crazed. I'm not sure whether that's a weakness, because most of the characters in this story have multiple dimensions, even the murderer and Lee himself, a coarse ex inmate devoting himself to debauchery.
On the whole, not bad except for that loose-limbed plot.