Van Johnson was evacuated from Liverpool to the United States during the Second World War. His mother died young and he is working his way around the world before he settles down to a career in electronics. He doesn't know what became of his father, so he makes enquiries. He discovers he has been in prison for sixteen years for strangling a young girl. He investigates and finds cracks in the official story, even as officials make it difficult for him to find out anything.
Something has gone awry in this production. Van Johnson, at 43, was too old for his role, and the scriptwriters, working from an A.J. Cronin novel, put a lot of English usage in his mouth, instead of American. The pace is erratic, and the subplot involving Vera Miles, with whom he has fallen in love, seems like to be added to the story, without contributing to it.
That is not to say that there are not some strengths to this move. Bernard Miles, everyone's favorite M from the James Bond series, is brilliant as Johnson's father, brutalized by years of prison. Emlyn Williams is also around, playing a creepy man to perfection. Anthony Newlands as a newspaperman who gets the investigation moving and connects the dots, is a godsend to this movie. It's too bad they can't make this obviously good story into a good movie.
