Ann Todd

Eric Portman

Bill Owen

Maxwell Reed

Edward Rigby

Eliot Makeham

Jane Hylton

Margaret Withers

John Turnbull

Maurice Denham

Milton Rosmer

Lyn Evans

Andrew Crawford

Garry Marsh

Sydney Box

Muriel Box

Compton Bennett

Dorothy Sinclair

Benjamin Frankel

Helga Cranston

James A. Carter

Peter Price

Bernard Lewis

Reginald H. Wyer

Crime

Drama

Thriller

Daybreak

Sydney Box Productions

J. Arthur Rank Organisation

United Kingdom

CinemaSerf

I reckon this has to be the best outing for Ann Todd ("Frankie") that I've seen. Here she plays the girlfriend of Eric Portman ("Eddie") who is really a hangman, but who doesn't want her to know so pretends to be a salesman to explain his frequent, and often overnight, absences from their home on a barge he has inherited. It's during one of those absences that she finds herself the focus of the unwarranted attentions of the rather uncouth "Olaf" (Maxwell Reed) and... Compton Bennett has created a clever piece of cinema here; we are given much of the bones of the story but have to come to a few of our own conclusions as tragedy ensues. According to the BBFC, the film wasn't cut at the time but it doesn't look like it - there are gaps that sort of make sense, but there are quite a few that clearly don't and that disjoints the narrative and occasionally spoils what is otherwise a complex tale. Well worth a gander.

English