lucyrfisher I love this film for the atmosphere. It seems to be always October, the dark time of the year, and the cast seem to love wandering about a lonely common at night. John Mills comes out of hospital to live in a residential hotel. The other guests are a motley crew, beautifully played by Joyce Carey and others. Miss Heap, who is always moaning "Miss Selbeeee! Could we have more coal?" Joyce Carey, with her beautiful face which hides a soul that only cares about bridge and gossip. The weedy Mr Pope, who turns out to be rather a good egg. And Miss Newman, the underwear model with the dubious boyfriend. (That camel-hair overcoat is a giveaway.) The hotel is almost a character in its own right with its furnishings unchanged for at least 40 years. John Mills falls for the sister of a colleague, whose family represents normality and thick- headed respectability. She is played by Joan Greenwood, with an unflattering hairdo and unbelievably frumpy clothes. Kay Walsh as the model, with her stash of gin and book on horoscopes, seems much more amusing. I think someone should reinvent residential hotels.

ilprofessore-1 This post-war (1947) English psychological thriller directed by Roy Ward Baker is distinguished by its superb photography in deep blacks and brilliant whites by the German-English lighting cameraman Erwin Hillier who had been a camera assistant on Fritz Lang's "M" and Murnau's "Tabu." Hillier uses the expressionistic techniques associated with these German director's film's to create a complex series of highlights and shadows, contrasting high and low angle camera compositions to create a atmosphere of both glossy glamour and terrifying suspense. It's a shame that Hillier and Hitchcock never worked together. What a team they might have made!

justincward Top class British entertainment of the old school, when the UK had a film industry. Atmospheric, edgy plot and direction (for 1947) thanks to Eric Ambler, and lots of period detail of character and setting that come from a world gone by. Plugging the iron into the light socket, for example. You'll laugh, but you'll be rooting for John Mills in the seedy lodging house full of dodgy salesmen, lingerie models and brigadiers' spinster daughters all the way. Mills is often a bit (literally) lightweight in leading roles, but here the character of a vulnerable, sensitive junior scientist fits like a glove. Well worth a rental.

MIKE WILSON A wonderful old black and white British film, that has John Mills suffering from a head injury sustained in a bus crash, is the suspect in a murder mystery, when a girl that he has helped out with some money, has been found dead. Good performances from the whole cast and the audience is kept in suspense up to the final scenes as to weather the murderer will escape.