Nowhere to Go

This is an offering from Michael Balcon at Ealing Studios which was probably not one of the premier British studios. That is one reason I was so surprised at the quality of the story and the production values. It was made during a period where the Brits tended to imitate most things American. The cars, the clothes, the movies, even the music. And then came Carnaby Street and the Beatles.

The story revolves around a American thief in London, played by George Nader, who was probably at the nadir of his career. I checked his credits and about this time he drifted into TV and then on to Germany and the rest of Europe, keeping busy in forgettable movies. His performance in this movie was low key, but really slick. He plays a professional who cons an old lady out of a valuable coin collection and spends the rest of the movie trying to cash it in and split. One by one his shady friends turn on him until he ends up a hunted man ducking for cover at every turn. He is eventually forced to rely on a virtual stranger he meets accidentally. She is played by a young and very interesting Maggie Smith. In fact I didn't even recognize her until the credits rolled.

This story was well written. Tight and tense. The performances were top notch, and the atmosphere had a very noir feel to it, even though a lot of it was shot in daylight. I don't know why George Nader's star waned. You couldn't predict it from his performance here.

George Nader had a penchant for difficult roles, and here he is in a difficult spot indeed, as everything goes wrong for him. He makes a great theft of £55.000 by tricking an old lady, he puts the money in a bank vault and loses the key, he is sentenced to prison for his crime expecting five years and gets ten, he escapes, and all his former accomplices betray him, one after the other. Bernard Lee is interested in helping him only because of the money, and by accident he is killed and George charged with murder, so he is a hunted man with nowhere to go, and only Maggie Smith is decent enough to help him. It is lovely to see her so young and fresh in one of her earliest films - she would later in the 60s make Desdemona against Laurence Olivier. Of course, this bleak and sordid fugitive story could only end in one way, and it does. Maggie Smith gets out of it unharmed, while the film is replenished with losers. It's a dark noir in black and white with no sunshine in it, and George Nader is working hard to get through it. The legendary Ealing studios could come out with more cheerful pictures.

If this film had been made in 1950s France by directors named Clouzot or Melville, this Ealing production would be a regular on the revival circuit and in film school classrooms. Sadly, it's a completely unheralded film. Directed expertly by Seth Holt, who co-wrote the film with critic Kenneth Tynan, the film features an on-his-way-to-Europe George Nader as an American con man in London, looking to score by stealing a valuable coin collection (the owner is played by American expatriate and silent film star Bessie Love). His companion in crime is the docile but dangerous Bernard Lee, and there are double crosses and dirty dealings aplenty. The star of the film is Paul Beeson's amazing cinematography, always artistic but never too showy. Beeson also did sterling work for Ealing's The Shiralee (1957), and it's hard to understand how his career ended up on Harry Alan Towers scrap-heap. Dizzy Reece's outstanding jazz score (his only film work) fits the story like a glove and Maggie Smith makes her film debut as Nader's love interest. This is a great film and a true work of art.

I almost skipped this film -- it was a late night offering on TCM -- but I'm so glad I taped it. Like most film noir, the story never seems to go in the direction you expect; its charm lies in this unpredictability. Unlike most film noir, however, Nowhere To Go seems both authentic and believable. In the end, Paul Gregory's self-assured cockiness is undone by surprise, deceit and suspicion.

My initial interest was to watch Maggie Smith's first credited screen role but was completely drawn in by all of the principal characters. Those more accustomed to seeing Smith in her more sophisticated roles from the 1970s onwards, will be pleasantly surprised by her ability to comfortably inhabit the role of a working class girl.

I had never seen George Nader in anything before. Too bad he never achieved the degree of greatness his talent and good looks seemed to promise. Although American born, I think he would have played a convincing James Bond.

Both Bessie Love and Bernard Lee provide strong supporting roles.

When the film begins, Paul Gregory (George Nader) escapes from prison. Soon after, you see a flashback to learn what brought him to prison. It seems that he recently came from the US to the UK and expected to get a light sentence when he steals a coin collection. He then expects to be able to escape, retreive the stolen collection and beat it out of the country. He definitely is a cool character....and you wonder if he is quite as clever as he thought he was when his plan starts to unravel!

George Nader was a handsome actor who left the US in the late 1950s to make films in Europe, such as the Jerry Cotton spy films. This is because he was outed in the press in the States and felt he had more options for work in Europe...which he apparently did. Here he is quite good in the lead...one of his few leading roles of this period in his career.

This is an interesting example of British film noir. While it lacks the cool camera angles of the best of the noir, its amoral sensibilities and coldness of the main character are classic noir all the way. Well worth seeing and it's a quiet, brooding sort of film.