Miles-10 This is an entertaining thriller despite its dated-ness. The efforts to rescue a trapped boy make for edge-of-your-seat drama. The story covers every angle from frazzled nerves as time expires to anguished self-recriminations when there is nothing for some of the characters to do but wait. All of this is predictable yet compelling. Mr. Dawson, the vault expert, reminds me of Mr. Wolf in "Pulp Fiction" in that he's the guy who finally comes in and lays out what they have to do to solve the problem and rescue the boy. He has a straight forward but labor intensive plan and directs everybody to get it done.As a bonus, we get to see Sean Connery in a pre-fame bit part. He is cast as Welder #1 (although his boss calls him "Bill" at one point) and is the only character who has a British Isles accent, even though he is not the only cast member who seems to be British. Indeed, the production is interesting in that while this movie seems to have been made in the UK, it is based on a television play that was originally done on Canadian TV. The cast is international in that it includes British, Irish, Canadian and American actors. (It is a sad note that Irish actor Victor Wood, who plays Mr. Zeeder, died less than a year after this movie's release.)The dated portrayal of technical details is telling. For example, Welder #2 gets hit in the face with hot metal because he is not wearing a welder's mask. I can understand that maybe they are careless because they are hurrying to rescue a trapped child, and it looks as if, even then, they know better because once this accident happens the boss tells Connery's character to go get a mask before taking over the job.I think I might be able to solve the mystery of the cloth over the registration numbers of the helicopter. (See Goofs.) The movie is set in Canada but was filmed in the UK. Aircraft registration numbers include a letter that designates the country. The filmmakers did not want to show a British helicopter flying over Canada.The medical anomalies got to me particularly when the two doctors finally have access to the unconscious victim. They wait until he is taken out to the ambulance before they do anything to check his vitals let alone try to resuscitate him. Today, EMTs and doctors would immediately start working on the patient as soon as they got their hands on him. Way too slow. (I once asked a retired nurse when she first heard of "ABC", the emergency medicine acronym for prompting immediate attention to "airways, breathing, and circulation", and she said it wasn't until the late '60s, so maybe doctors really were slower to do things in 1957, which would have made them lose a lot more patients than they would a decade later. Worse, back in the 1950s and maybe even into the 1960s, ambulance drivers were often not certified EMTs! I don't recall encountering EMTs until the '70s.)On some personal notes: This movie was released in late summer 1957 and the boy in the story says that he has just turned six that day (though the actor is actually closer to ten). I myself turned six in September 1957, so I might have identified more with the boy if I had thought about that while watching, but it didn't occur to me until after the film ended.Victor Winter, who plays the boy, was Scottish and a successful child actor as well as an assistant director and production manager in adulthood. He worked on a film where I was an extra in the early 1980s, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", although he worked in Macau, China whereas I worked in California, USA.

nzpedals Almost all the action takes place in a bank where the manager has to set a time-lock on a Friday night at 6pm that keeps the vault securely locked until 9am the following Monday. But then the accountant's wife and six-year-old son arrive. It is the boy's birthday and he has been given a torch (flash-light) as a present. Of course he wants to try it out, and the dark unlit vault is a perfect place. A car crash outside distracts the manager and he doesn't see the boy go into the vault. When he comes away from the window he doesn't check inside the vault, just locks it up. When they realise the boy must be inside, they try to unlock the vault. But can't. So they try to contact Head Office and the expert who knows about vaults. But he has already left for a fishing trip. We all know that eventually they will rescue the boy, so "spoilers" don't apply, unless someone makes a disaster movie where the the heroes fail and everyone dies? Na. It is hard to recognise Sean Connery at age 27. Good acting, good story, not very demanding, so I liked it.

Skint111 This is actually a pretty good thriller that benefits from the no-nonsense, fact-based dialogue and avoids sentimentality for the most part. Technically it's nothing remarkable and yes, the actors are largely undistinguished, but the story is developed in a pleasing and suspenseful way. Another reviewer's remark on this page that the film doesn't work because the child is unappealing is somewhat bizarre. The kid is on screen for all of two minutes and has but a few words of dialogue. And he's actually a cute little fella too, making you root for his rescue.In summary then, this is a movie which had the likes of Hitchcock or another of the greats directed it, have been a classic. Instead it's an enjoyable way to spend an hour and a bit in front of the telly - especially if you, say, find yourself off work ill one afternoon.

JAYLBEE Happened to (accidently) see this travesty on UK TV a few days ago. It might have been better if the audiences had been locked in the bank vault and the actors (I use the word actor in its loosest context) left outside to get on with it. This film can be bracketed with 'Plan B from outer space ' as the joint worst films of all time. Their is no aspect of this film (even allowing for its age) for which (search as I may) I can find any redeeming feature. Ghastly dialogue,, wooden acting and risible photography all vie with each other to win the prize of supreme awfulness. A story line which defies belief and a child 'star' of somewhat limited intelligence and mind-numbing mediocrity, not to mention a character which qualifies as an irritant of the first magnitude - see it at your peril, there is no known antidote !