He Who Rides a Tiger

Tom Bell is 33, have been a professional burglar since he was 16, and is released from prison for the seventh time. He immediately goes back to his cat-burglary, and is immensely successful at it. But he has streaks of temper when dealing with girl friends, seethes when questioned by police, visits his mentor, Peter Madden in prison, and leaves thousands of pounds in cash for Madden's wife, Kay Walsh. He's also very fond of children, and eventually falls in love with fiercely independent Judi Dench and her son, Grant Lovatt.

Director Charles Crichton's last big-screen feature until A FISH CALLED WANDA is a superbly acted portrait of Bell's character. It's highly cinematic, and we have to infer everything about him from what he does. Even that is available only in flashes and bits that don't seem to fit together unless the audience can make a leap of intuition from the title; then it all becomes clear. Miss Dench's character gets a bit more talk and explication. It seems peculiar to see her as a beautiful young woman in a role any of a dozen other actors could have performed as well; she wouldn't begin to find roles that suited her ability to play a strong woman for several more years.