Directed by Joseph Losey • 1957 • United Kingdom
Starring Michael Redgrave, Ann Todd, Leo McKern
On the day before his estranged son is scheduled to be executed for a murder he didn’t commit, an alcoholic writer (a riveting Michael Redgrave) embarks on a last-ditch attempt to save him, journeying into England’s criminal underworld in order to prove the young man’s innocence—and he is just unsteady enough in his thinking to make every twist of this powerful noir drama a source of ever-tightening suspense. Joseph Losey’s second British film after being blacklisted from Hollywood is forged with a feverish intensity, wringing maximum impact from the ticking-clock premise to make the audience feel the passage of every desperate second.
Up Next in Noirvember
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Hell Drivers
Directed by Cy Endfield • 1957 • United Kingdom
Starring Stanley Baker, Herbert Lom, Peggy CumminsBlacklisted from Hollywood, American director Cy Endfield found a fresh start in Britain, where he brought a pronounced anticapitalist punch to this exciting crime drama set in the trucking industr...
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Murder by Contract
Directed by Irving Lerner • 1958 • United States
Starring Vince Edwards, Phillip Pine, Herschel BernardiVince Edwards stars as a hired assassin whose latest “assignment” (Caprice Toriel) is about to testify against the mob. But this particular target is not so easy to get at. So he waits . . . ...
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The Crimson Kimono
Directed by Samuel Fuller • 1959 • United States
Starring Victoria Shaw, Glenn Corbett, James ShigetaPulp maestro Samuel Fuller lends his slam-bang stylistic punch to this complex, fascinating noir that doubles as a trenchant social document of 1950s America. When a stripper is murdered in LA’s...
