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I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

From my favorite movies..

An action-packed slog

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Michael Redgrave seldom turns in a bad performance and occasionally - The Browning Version - he unleashes a great one so he was definitely the selling point for this slightly off-the-wall entry. Several people in talking about this give Emlyn Williams a credit for the original play Someone Waiting but the 'official' credits here list only Ben Barzman and the implication is that it's an Original screenplay. Beginning with the murder of a young girl with the murderer clearly seen we then jump forward to a time when another man, clearly innocent, has been arrested, charged, stood trial, been found guilty and is now hours from execution, all this off screen. Enter Redgrave, flown in from Canada at the last minute and determined to save his son. The film can't decide if it's a race-against-time thriller to find the real murderer or an attack on capital punishment but Redgrave is always a good bet.

****SPOILERS****We see here that a father's love for his son has no bounds even to the point of willingly giving up his life to save him from going to the gallows. Just released from a Canadian sanitarium where he spent the last two years for acute alcoholism writer David Graham, Michael Redgrave, flies to England to save his son Alec, Alec McCowen, from being executed for the murder of his girlfriend Jennie Coles, Christina Lubicz.. It was Jennie who was found beaten to death at the Stanford Mansion where they both were attending a Christmas Eve party. Alec who was so drunk at the time can't remember what happened but feeling guilt for Jennie's death he meekly accepts the judgment of the court to have him executed.It's David Graham's stubborn determination to not only find his son Innocent but also who really murdered Jennie Coles that leads him to hit the bottle that he promised his son Alec never to do again that in his alcohol induced state eventually lead him to expose Jennie's killer but at the very cost of his own life! It takes a lot of legwork as well as shots of gin whiskey and scotch for David to get to the bottom of the bottle as well Jennie's murderer. In the end with time running out and David's son Alec about to take the 13 steps to the gallows he finally finds out who Jennie's killer really is-no surprise since we saw him murder her before the starting credits even rolled down the screen-the psychopathic and maniacal owner and a bit off his rocker sports car manufacture Robert Stanford, Leo McKern,who's sexual advances she resisted!****MAJOR SPOILERS**** With Alec's execution just minutes away David confronts Stanford at his office and after pleading for him, by admitting his guilt to the authorities, to save Alec's life then as a last resort does the unthinkable! That in him throwing caution to the wind and getting into a wild slug fest with Stanford in order to have him murder David as well! That's to prove to the courts that if Stanford was willing to murder David in preventing him exposing Stanford as Jennie's killer why wouldn't he have murdered Jennie herself! With David dead on the floor and the police as well as Stanford's adopted son Brian,Paul Daneman, breaking into Stanford's office and catching him,with the murder weapon,red handed the totally crazed and hyperventilating Stanford goes into a wild and uncontrollable tirade that should have easily and hands down won him the 1957 Academy Award as the years best actor!

Michael Redgrave, recently released from an alcoholic rehabilitation center, is the father of young Alec McCowen, who is to be hanged in a day or two. Alec has been convicted of the murder of a young girl. Redgrave is convinced he's innocent and spends the remaining hours attempting to prove it. It's a difficult job. Antecedent to the crime is a network of moves and counter-moves by a network of people with reasons to lie. It's all a tangled web.Redgrave gives a fine performance as a man on the edge of the abyss, trembling and stuttering. As the final moments approach, he's positively frazzled -- unshaven and half hysterical. The other performers are uniformly professional except that Alec McCowen, who was later to be great as the detective in Hitchcock's "Frenzy," overdoes everything when he's on screen, as if performing for an acting class.The direction is by Joseph Losey who also was later to become far more smooth. Here, it's jumpy. Sometimes the plot is hard for a viewer to follow. (No wonder Redgrave is so frustrated.) Too often the story resembles a made-for-television movie. It has Redgrave hurrying about from one possible source of information to another, begging for help. It picks up pace quickly towards the end and the climax comes as a complete surprise -- or at least it did to me.It's worth watching but it's nothing special.

I finally caught this interesting little film about six months ago on Turner Classic films. This is based on one of Emlyn Williams twisty murder plays (like his classic, NIGHT MUST FALL). Here we have Michael Redgrave as the father of Alec MacGowan (who is on death row) trying to find out who actually committed the murder his son is charged with. Redgrave is an alcoholic, and a failed parent, and his every effort is stymied by hostility and stonewalling. But slowly he realizes that the guilty party is a millionaire car manufacturer played by Leo McKern. Peter Cushing also appears, as the solicitor who gradually becomes convinced that Redgrave knows what he's talking about (a welcome normal role for the horror film star). I recommend the film, particularly for the ironic way that Redgrave finally turns the tables on McKern, making it impossible for McKern to escape punishment.