Don't listen to the negative reviews

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I watched TCM's 87-minute broadcast of this film from June 2017. What a find! Script-wise, it continually zigs when the viewer expects it to zag. The cinematography is a mix of elements to love -- noir shadings, in-depth focus, unusual but always pertinent camera angles. And I suppose that in the context of films like Scream of Fear and The Nanny, the sober and somewhat cynical auteur side of Seth Holt comes through. George Nader pretty much carries the acting chores and does fine at it. It's a shame he never seemed to break through to the big time. I remember him, of course, in Robot Monster, also in a TV show called Man and the Challenge. Maggie Smith, in her film debut, is anything but a sexy ingenue. Her part is scripted to carry her character in an entirely opposite direction; her large eyes and muted attractiveness do add to the effectiveness of her performance. An uncut, Region 2 DVD adding 13 minutes to the film is available through Amazon UK. I would imagine that the extra footage serves to amplify the evolution of Nader's character -- this, not the suspense (though it is suspenseful), struck me as the focus of this unjustly neglected film. Give it a try!

I watched this because it is a product of the great Ealing Studio of West London, although it was released under the imprimis of both Ealing and MGM. Evidently Ealing and MGM had come to some sort of a working agreement. The movie is a complete departure from the quirkily distinctive films of Ealing's heyday - Man in the White Suit, Lavender Hill Mob, Whiskey Galore, The Ladykillers. All of those films had a distinctive and gentle take on the British national character. Nowhere to Go is a straightforward crime drama, and forgoes that unique Ealing flavor. For what it is it isn't bad. It's good to see Maggie Smith in one of her earliest roles, and Bernard Lee, who will always be remembered as "M" in the Bond movies. Paul Gregory for me is rather wooden. However, there a few too incredulities in the plot, and the ending is a disappointment. The earlier Ealing movies always put a sense of closure on things. This movie just sort of stops, in what seems to be a gesture toward nihilism.

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.

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.