People are voting emotionally.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Director: Joseph LOSEY. Screenplay: Ben Barzman. Based on the stage play, "Someone Waiting: by Emlyn Williams. Original music by Tristram Cary. Photography: Freddie Francis. Film editor: Alan Osbiston. Production designer: Reece Pemberton. Art director: Bernard Sarron. Hair stylist: Ivy Emmerton. Make-up artist: Alex Garfath. Production manager: Leigh Aman. Assistant directors: Adrian Pryce-Jones, Colin M. Brewer. Sound recording: Cyril Collick. Dubbing editor: Rusty Coppleman. Wardrobe: Irma Birch. Set continuity: Pamela Davies. Music conductor: Marcus Dods. Camera operator: Arthur Ibbetson. Still photographer: Ed Orton. Properties: Leander Richards. Assistant film editor: John Victor-Smith. Production secretary: Anthea Warren. Producers: John Arnold and Anthony Simmons. Executive producer: Leon Clore.A Harlequin Production, released in the U.K. through Eros: 13 May 1957. U.S. release through Famous Pictures. New York opening at the 55th Street Playhouse: 22 November 1957. Australian release through British Empire Films: 23 April 1959 (sic). Censored to 88 minutes in the U.K., but shown in a 92 minutes version in Australia. Alas, only the censored version is available on DVD – Odeon in the U.K., Homevision in the U.S.A.SYNOPSIS: A father has only 24 hours to save his son from the hangman's noose. COMMENT: A modestly budgeted but powerful thriller, "Time Without Pity" was directed with driving concentration by Joseph Losey, its drama encompassing the Greek unities and refracted through a series of distorting mirrors reflecting the superb portrayals of a first- rate cast including Michael Redgrave and Leo McKern.This was Losey's his first screen credit on a feature film in England, where he had taken refuge from the F.B.I.'s charge of alleged "Un-American activities" in the U.S.A. Losey had actually been sheltering in England for five years before he directed "Time Without Pity". In the meantime, he had directed a few British pictures without credit, as well as a short, "Man on the Beach", for which he did receive a credit. He was also engaged in stage work in London's West End where he produced two plays, "The Wooden Dish" and "The Night of the Ball".

Time Without Pity is directed by Joseph Losey and adapted to screenplay by Ben Barzman from the Emlyn Williams play Someone Waiting. It stars Michael Redgrave, Ann Todd, Leo McKern, Paul Daneman, Peter Cushing, Alec McCowen, Renee Houston and Lois Maxwell. Music is by Tristram Cary and cinematography by Freddie Francis.David Graham (Redgrave) is a recovering alcoholic who comes out of the sanitarium to try and prove his son is innocent of murder. His son, Alec (McCowen), is to be hanged in 24 hours for the slaying of his girlfriend. David finds he is constantly met with brick walls and his sobriety is tested at every turn, but salvation may lie with the suspicious Stanford family... Blacklisted in America, Joseph Losey went to the UK and made a number of films under various pseudonyms, Time Without Pity marked the first time he would put his own name to the production. It's also a film that stands tall as another of Losey's excellent British offerings.Losey and his team do not make a murder mystery, from the off we see who the killer is and it's not young Alec Graham. This is a device that in the wrong hands has often over the years proved costly, where viewers looking for suspense have been sorely short changed. What happens here is that we are privy to an investigation by a man in misery, battling his demons as he frantically searches for redemption. Tick Tock. Tick Tock.Shunned by his estranged son, who would rather be hanged for a crime he didn't commit than accept his "waster" father's help - that might in turn give him false hope, David Graham is a haunted being who is closer to solving the case than he knows. This brings us viewers tantalisingly into the play, we know who it is, we can see how they react around David and how the other players who are hiding something also behave from scene to scene. The script never looses focus, it constantly keeps a grip on the tension as the clock ticks down on the Graham's.Tick Tock. Tick Tock.Losey and the great Freddie Francis are a dream pairing, a meeting of minds who could produce striking lighting compositions and scenes of other worldly distinction. Time Without Pity is full of such film making smarts. Time is a key, obviously, clocks feature constantly, including one classic era film noir extended scene as David visits a potential witness who has her home filled with alarm clocks! Alarm clocks that keep going off at regular intervals, thus putting an already twitchy and sweaty David Graham further on the edge of his nerves.Tick Tock. Tick Tock.One scene enforces that on the page there's an anti-capital punishment message, but as a bunch of suits sit in a room digressing about the ethics of it all etc, Losey and Francis fill the room with stripped shadows filtered via the led patterned windows, it's that what you remember, not a social message. Gorgeous and potent all in one. Mirrors feature as well, with one elevator shot superb, while the bittersweet ending deserves better credit than it got at the time of release. Certainly noir lovers will enjoy it as much as they enjoy some other kinks in the story narrative.Over the top of it all is a brilliant musical score by Tristram Cary (all his 50s work is worth checking out), three years before Herrmann brought bloodied strings to Psycho, Cary deals from an earlier deck of cards with string menace supreme, while his ticking clock motif is a pearler. Redgrave is terrific, a sweaty mass of fragility, while Todd, Cushing and Houston (wonderful) bring class to their respective characters. Losey's misstep is in not reigning in McKern, who is way too animated throughout, but such is the strength of everything elsewhere, it can't hurt the picture at all. Oh and look out for future Miss. Moneypenny Lois Maxwell, the little minx.Now widely available on DVD with a good print, Time Without Pity demands to be better known. 9/10

Time has no pity, no sympathy, no joy and no sorrow. It's passage denotes the brevity in which the living inhabit the earth. In TIME WITHOUT PITY, a young man is dong time in prison for a murder he did not commit. A correctional institution is about to put a stop to that young man's time at the behest of the State. A father caught between the daunting task of fighting the system for more time, and forgetting time altogether at the bottom of a whisky glass. A broken woman mourning the loss of time never spent with one who's out of time. Every character in this drama is lost somewhere in their own guilt ridden space and time, but director Losey makes sure his audience is always aware, littering the screen with watches and clocks ticking like a giant timebomb about to explode as the desperately pathetic father searches for a clue to disable the alarm. Lost in an alcoholic haze that is almost dreamlike in it's ability to paralyze action, he clumsily attempts to win back for his son the time he let slip away. Is it too late? An incredibly edgy, self-aware film, TIME WITHOUT PITY clearly states its objection to the State as executioner. From the opening scene, we know the son did not commit the murder, but neither the State, "You must keep your visit short . . . we don't want to upset the prisoner," the Church, "He's given himself over to more compassionate hands," or the anti-capital punishment advocates, "We're not interested in whether young Graham is innocent or guilty," seem to have a specific interest in the individual. To make matters worse, young Graham himself has given up hope and when his father pleads, "don't give up," he asks, "What difference would it have made if you had died when you were my age?" And this question gets to the core of the film; it's resonance heavily influencing the final pivotal scene.

A bizarre psychogram of a series of characters, all of whom are disturbed in their own manner. Losey delineates the characters through a series of images which are so effective because they're so simple.A cheap B-movie. The choppy dramaturgy and editing, viewed from today's perspective, conveys a nervousness and an intensity to the film that was probably lost on a 50's audience. No happy end, but a just and noble one.