Country: GB
Technical: bw 86m
Director: Basil Dearden
Cast: Bonar Colleano, Earl Cameron, Susan Shaw, Renée Asherson, Max Adrian, Leslie Phillips
Synopsis:
An American petty smuggler on a cargo ship involves his Jamaican mate in helping him avoid Customs, but gets in too deep when some real crooks use him to look after stolen diamonds.
Review:
Effective Ealing crime drama set around the shore leave of merchant seamen, their romantic entanglements and their money-making schemes. There is no end of fascinating detail about how we lived back then, excellent location work and a realistic script. As usual from Ealing, the film-making is first-rate and every part well taken. The major interest lies in the personage of Johnny, the black merchant seaman poised to return to Jamaica, but enjoying a tantalising glimpse of happiness with Susan Shaw's theatre cashier. Despite his evident education he is treated with varying degrees of indifference or contempt, and Dearden would return to this racial theme with Sapphire at decade's end.
Country: GB
Technical: bw 86m
Director: Basil Dearden
Cast: Bonar Colleano, Earl Cameron, Susan Shaw, Renée Asherson, Max Adrian, Leslie Phillips
Synopsis:
An American petty smuggler on a cargo ship involves his Jamaican mate in helping him avoid Customs, but gets in too deep when some real crooks use him to look after stolen diamonds.
Review:
Effective Ealing crime drama set around the shore leave of merchant seamen, their romantic entanglements and their money-making schemes. There is no end of fascinating detail about how we lived back then, excellent location work and a realistic script. As usual from Ealing, the film-making is first-rate and every part well taken. The major interest lies in the personage of Johnny, the black merchant seaman poised to return to Jamaica, but enjoying a tantalising glimpse of happiness with Susan Shaw's theatre cashier. Despite his evident education he is treated with varying degrees of indifference or contempt, and Dearden would return to this racial theme with Sapphire at decade's end.
