Jack Cardiff proved his Oscar-winning adaptation was no mere flash in the pan with this powerful drama based on a novel by A. J. Cronin atmospherically set in Liverpool. It pulls no punches in depicting the callousness and disregard of the establishment as they close ranks when they stand to lose political capital from the exposure of a miscarriage of justice.
Bernard Lee is unforgettable as the hero's father coarsened by nearly twenty years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, and Vera Miles has an offbeat role as a woman who befriends the hero but with an aversion to being touched which provides added complexity to an already tense tale.
Bernard Lee is unforgettable as the hero's father coarsened by nearly twenty years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, and Vera Miles has an offbeat role as a woman who befriends the hero but with an aversion to being touched which provides added complexity to an already tense tale.