Nowhere to Go

Well I have to say I very much enjoyed this Ealing made British thriller, although I guess it was all a bit predictable as it has been described in the title.

The story revolves around a Canadian conman played by George Nader who reminds me for football fans as a Luis Figo lookalike. Good performances by Maggie Smith, making her film debut I think and Bernard Lee although I never thought of him as a violent type. A small part from the usual wooden Harry H Corbett too.

It kept my attention all the way through which is a fair achievement although as I mentioned previously it is a little predictable and has a few far fetched moments. Nevertheless a great watch.

One observation I made was how much our road system has improved since this film was made. When our main characters leave for Wales at the end Maggie tells George it will be an 8 hour journey, I can do in just over 2 if I put my foot down.

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.

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.

Sort of reminded me of an earlier noir about a morally challenged Yank adrift in postwar Britain, "Night And The City". Not quite as good, though. A bit too much time is spent on the prison escape and the con that the morally challenged American is running rather than on the good stuff, namely the serial betrayals Paul Gregory experiences from various false friends and the consequent sense of entrapment that he feels, a mood that mirrors the film's bleak title and which all great noirs must have in abundance, in my opinion.

Still, it's fun to see Maggie Smith, in her first movie, effectively playing a sexy yet vulnerable gal. And George Nader, who should have had a bigger career (homophobia, perhaps?), is quite good as a doomed man on the run. I also liked director Seth Holt's handling of tone, action and, with exception of act one, pacing. Once we emerge from the long back story, the film finds its footing and moves at a good clip. Give it a B.

PS...Considering that the screenplay was co written by one of England's more pompous theatre critics, it's surprisingly unpretentious.

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.