Scarlet Thread

There are two things memorable about this crime drama. The first is Laurence Harvey's hair - two or three tubs of Brylcream? The second is - as always - Kathleen Byron's eyes. She can smile all she likes but those eyes always look they are about to impale you, violently, on a nearby rusty nail! Actually, as this film unfolds it proves distinctly possible that the former may well end up a victim of the latter as he and his partner-in-crime "Marcon" (Sydney Tafler) take refuge at her stately pile whilst on the run from the police. Harvey ("Freddie") is a cocky young man who panics during a jewel robbery and he kills an innocent man. Now the two must flee the pursuing constabulary and slowly but surely begin to mistrust one another - a situation that comes to an head as Miss Byron ("Josephine") discovers the identity of their victim. Lewis Gilbert assembles a decent supporting cast - Dora Bryan and Tafler's regular screen pal Harry Fowler to keep this rather less predictable and more interesting than many of the genre. There is a bit of scope for characterisation and the story has a twist at the end that adds a certain element of just desserts too. Rarely seen nowadays, but worth a watch.

A drab, talky little drama enhanced by vivid photography by veteran cameraman Geoffrey Faithfull, much of it filmed on location in London and then Cambridge.

A once-in-a-lifetime cast headed by top-billed Kathleen Byron then on the slide and Lawrence Harvey working his way up (along with director Lewis Gilbert) manages in one scene to include both Arthur Hill and Eliot Makeham.

Laurence Harvey tries to lift Sidney Tafler's wallet. Tafler calls him out on it, but does not call the nearby police. Instead, he takes him home, gives him dinner, and tells him that when he has a job for him, he'll send for him. The job is a smash-and-grab on a jeweler's window in Cambridge. Harvey shoots a man who tries to interfere, a crowd gets between them and their getaway car, which drives off. The men outrace the crowd and take refuge in the University, where they impose, due to Tafler's having gone to Trinity, on Kathleen Byron, whose father has gone to a meeting in London.

Lewis Gilbert does a nice job directing his first feature. After a look at the town and the university grounds, it turns into a nice study in Tafler's and Harvey's minds. Harvey is a punk, exhibiting the craziness he would use to advantage in future movies. There's also a nice bit of suspense in the situation, with the police looking for them with poor descriptions, and the fate of the shot man. There is a touch too much in the way of coincidence in the second half of the movie, but it's tightly plotted and it holds together well while watching it.

SCARLET THREAD is an interesting little British crime film that works thanks to a good cast and some different locations to the usual. The plot sees B-movie veterans Laurence Harvey and Sydney Tafler playing an unlikely couple of robbers who decide to team up and rob a jewellers with the help of getaway driver Harry Fowler. Unfortunately things don't go to plan and they are forced to hide out in one of the local colleges, where Harvey falls for the charms of a young woman bored with her genteel life.

The first thing to note about this film is the location: instead of the grim back streets of London, this is set in the wide open Cambridge and in particular in the grounds of one of the colleges there. It makes for a refreshing change of scenery and the director makes good use of his locations throughout. SCARLET THREAD feels unpredictable from beginning to end and has sudden bursts of tense action mixed with growing suspense so that you never quite know what's going to transpire next.

The second thing of note is that the cast is very good for a film of this budget. Harvey excels as the hot-headed young criminal and makes the viewer feel nervous whenever he's on screen. Kathleen Byron is an effective object of lust and exudes charisma and believability in her part. Best of all is Tafler in a surprisingly large and sympathetic part for the actor; his crippled character is both desperate and pitiful and really holds the film together, an A-list performance in a B-list picture. The likes of Fowler, Dora Bryan, and Cyril Chamberlain add quality in minor parts. SCARLET THREAD is a decent addition to the genre that more than holds its own against rival American fare.

Kathleen Byron was one of the most fascinating actresses of the noir period, while she only came to her rights under the direction of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. She did make a number of other thrillers besides the Archers productions, and this was one of her best. She is confronted here by Laurence Harvey as a very young man in one of his earliest roles, acting a nervous young amateur gangster with a gun, which of course he uses only for blunders, but his performance as this green hoodlum totally unsure of himself except for his interest and relations with dames is just perfect. This was Lewis Gilbert's first film, and it is startlingly Hitchcockian. The pastoral idylls of Cambridge with its ancient colleges and almost equally ancient professors are made the background of a shockingly grim drama of a burglary going wrong involving the accidental murder of an old man, who proves to be the last man the murderer would have liked to have killed. Sydney Tafler is the other villain, who has forced Harvey into his service for a professional job, in no way alerted by the fact that Harvey is such an unreliable amateur. Of course, it can only go from bad to worse, but there are many great moments of sustained suspense, and the fireworks in the end for the celebration of a centenary of a college is the perfect background for the final escape by the Ghost's Gallery, where for a striking effect the ghost actually appears of a man believed dead.