Sorry, this movie sucks

Dreadfully Boring

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

The problem with this film is that the murderer is obvious long before the murder is committed. Until that happens, the film is of little interest, while it then starts stirring with ever increasing tension, forcing your interest never to relax for one moment but actually compelling you to overwhelming empathy with the hardships of John Mills, who is exposed to horrible pressure, just because he is stamped as a mental invalid. His performance dominates the film, while Joan Greenwood is always a revelation. Kay Walsh makes a typical role of hers and sustains it well to the bitter end, while all the other actors also are absolutely convincing. The face of John Mills as Mr Peachy expresses his mind will stay in your mind forever - it's a marvel of a scene. Not all Eric Ambler's characters are completely credible, while the character here realized by John Mills is the more so. The fantastic photo all the way adds to the film's high reputation and quality.

Well filmed and acted. The cinematography is first class and enjoyable.I found the story unfortunately a little too obvious (you know who did it immediately) and that it will be resolved in some way in the letter the murdered woman sent.Also you have to suspend disbelief on numerous things...that the police wouldn't search the dead woman's room carefully (and find her love letters) is the most obvious one. There were others (it sure is easy to escape from British cops) but for what movies do you not have to suspend your disbelief a little?It is too bad they couldn't have sharpened up the story just a bit because all the other values are excellent...acting superb camera work etc...It rates a 7--it is leagues better than most of the quota British films of the 50s.RECOMMEND

John Mills is the "October Man" in this small 1947 British film costarring Joan Greenwood.Mills plays Jim Ackland, a man involved in a tragic train accident that killed the child of a friend (actually played by Juliet Mills) he was returning to town. He suffers a fractured skull and is hospitalized for a year, as he has developed some brain damage. He blames himself for the accident and is haunted by it. It's actually not clear if he has actual brain damage - he acts perfectly normal and is totally functional - or has developed psychological problems. He leaves the hospital, takes a room at a boarding house and gets a job. His neighbor in the house is a pretty young woman (Joan Greenwood) who apparently is always having money trouble and possibly traded either downright sex or nookies for money with another resident of the house, Mr. Peachy (Edward Chapman). Meanwhile, she's seeing a married man. So one could say her life is complicated. Attempting to break the ties that bind with Mr. not-so-Peachy, she puts the touch on Jim for 30 pounds, and he writes her a check. The next day she's found dead in the Commons, the crumpled check nearby. Suspicion falls on Jim because of the check, the fact that he wasn't home that night she was killed and because of idle gossip started by Mr. Peachey. Meanwhile, Jim has fallen in love with his coworker's sister; though his old terrors return, he realizes that he needs to keep fighting and clear himself of the murder.This is a good movie with a superb performance by John Mills and real British atmosphere which lends itself to the story and bumps up the suspense. As someone correctly stated, it is sort of a film noir but really more psychological in nature, which was all the rage after World War II. Very entertaining.

I first heard of this 1947 British film in one of Leslie Halliwell's books. Written by Eric Ambler and directed by Roy Baker, it's kind of a British answer to Hollywod's noir, essentially a reworking of Grahame Greene's Ministry Of Fear. Chemist (and I do mean "chemist", not pharmacist or apothecary) John Mills blames himself for the death a friend's daughter in a bus crash, which also gives Mills a concussion and tendencies towards blackouts and amnesia. Quicker than you can say "Alfred Hitchcock" Mills is accused of murdering a fellow resident of his boarding house, and poor old John can't remember if he did it or not. What's most fascinating to me is the subtext -- Mills is clearly supposed to represent returning war veterans, but the film's makers were too afraid to have war wounds be the source of his blackouts (even though H'wood had already done it in The Blue Dahlia) and instead resorted to the bus crash contrivance. There is effective direction by Baker (who went to H'wood and made the classic 3D "depthie" Inferno, later returning to England to do A Night To Remember) and Ambler's script is good, with a few surprise scattered throughout.