Rex Harrison

Peggy Cummins

William Hartnell

Norman Wooland

Jill Esmond

Frederick Piper

Marjorie Rhodes

Betty Ann Davies

Cyril Cusack

John Slater

Frank Pettingell

Michael Golden

Frederick Leister

Patrick Troughton

Alan Jaggs

Philip Dunne

Freddie Young

John Galsworthy

William Perlberg

William Alwyn

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Kenneth Heeley-Ray

Eddie Knight

Alex Vetchinsky

Tony Sforzini

Frank Bevis

W. H. Lindop

Gordon K. McCallum

Anthony Hearne

Thriller

Escape

20th Century Fox

United Kingdom

United States of America

CinemaSerf

Poor old Rex Harrison ("Denant") is taking a stroll though a foggy park when he gets involved in a tragic contretemps with a prostitute and an undercover police officer. The ensuing fracas sees the officer fall to the ground where he bangs his head on the leg of a bench and dies. "Denant" stays put, owns up and throws himself on the mercy of the court - and a sentence of three years is his reward. He manages to escape, though, and with the help of a young girl "Dora" (Peggy Cummins) manages to lead the pursuing police - led by William Hartnell - a merry dance. I've got to say, though, that aside from the obvious criticism of the demonstrably inflexible justice system that penalised a man for an accident, I struggled to quite see the point of the rest of it. It has gently religious - or, perhaps more specifically Christian - undertones, and maybe that serves to illustrate that a system with some flaws is better than no system at all, but it doesn't resonate in a fashion that concludes in anything substantial. Perhaps that's the point - maybe we are too prone to look for definites where there are none to be had. It's decently paced - much of it takes place on the run - and there is the odd comic scene, too. Harrison and Hartnell do their jobs well enough without either really having to tax their resources, nor for that matter must we, watching.

English