Watch Eight O'Clock Walk For Free

That was an excellent one.

So much average

Fresh and Exciting

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

A melodrama that looks at the legal system that suddenly adds dashes of Perry Mason into the mix. Richard Attenborough plays a local friendly cabbie who gets trick or treated by a gang of kids early in the morning. He goes after them more in jest and later helps one of the girl's looking for her lost doll in the streets of post war London which still was littered with bomb sitesWhen the young girl is found dead Attenborough turns out to be the wrong man in the wrong place but all the evidence, circumstantial it might be points to him being the murderer. Of course we know it's not him as we see a man in a bowler hat shown in silhouette who approached he girl after Attenborough left the girl and this shadowy man pops up later on. It really wants you to shout out 'its that man again' every time you see himAttenborough's wife has a hard time to get a criminal solicitor who believes in his innocent, only later a dogged barrister reluctantly turns detective in order to unmask the real culpritThe film has a very realistic location setting of the post war London with kids running about on their own. Even the reluctance of the lawyers to take the case on was very much on the mark. The latter part of the film based on some random circumstances allowing the Barrister to think it the murderer is someone else and nearby is rather convenient but the film just about gets away with it.

This is something of a mish-mosh all round, not least with a title that leads a potential audience to believe it is about a condemned man waiting to take the eight o'clock walk to the gallows and whilst it is true that the protagonist is accused of and stands trial for murder he is in fact acquitted. Director Lance Comfort made a handful of interesting films like Hatter's Castle, Bedelia and such but laid a colossal egg when entrusted with Portrait of Clare and was somewhat persona non grata ever afterward, mostly making do with TV fodder and the odd title like this one. For some reason Dickie Attenborough had a penchant for importing US actresses to appear opposite him; in The Angry Silence it was Pier Angeli and here it is Cathy O'Donnell. In fact the cast is one of the most interesting aspects of this with appearances by Kynaston Reeves, Victor Maddern etc plus in-vogue Derek Farr improbably unmasking the real killer a la Perry Mason. Worth a look as a curio.

I have awarded this film 7/10 and was surprised as a 67 year old regular viewer of films that I had not seen this long neglected title on TV before.I was given this Christmas from my wife about 12 movies of my choosing after visiting my favourite contact of rare dvds in North London.I was attracted to this title by the inclusion in the cast of actress Cathy O'Donnell who won acclaim as a newcomer acting in "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946), playing the young fiancé then wife of a U.S.seaman (Harold Russell) who actually lost both his wrists in WW11.There is no point giving the plot again but my wife & I both thought the mother was totally naive and not a little stupid allowing her very young daughter to roam over bomb sites rather than being escorted to school.However since I was 8 in 1954 I can state there was a much more casual approach by parents to child safety then like climbing trees, playing on bomb & building sites, walking by canals and walking home from school alone.Perhaps it was the effect of living through the war.Of course the 1954 British Board of Film censors would never have allowed a certificate for a film portraying murderous, psychotic paedophilia on cinema screens.Also in my DVD collection is Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock"(1949) which shows the depth of roles Dickie Attenborough could play.Here he plays an innocent cabbie in the wrong place & time who gets accused of the little girl's murder.To solve why Cathy O'Donnell has an American accent she plays Dickie's Canadian wife in this movie.She believes in her husband and fights to get him the best legal counsel for his defence.The real killer was spotted by my wife.

Didn't seem to have anything to do with an eight o'clock walk, more like 8.50 - the time the children were out in the street playing April Fool's jokes on everyone. Little Irene Manning is no exception, waylaying local cabbie Tom Manning (Richard Attenborough, goes without saying he turns in his usual solid performance) and, tearfully telling him her dolly is lost, she leads him onto an abandoned bomb site. When she is later found dead suspicion quickly mounts against Tom as witnesses testify that he was seen shaking his fist at the little girl - but it was all in fun!!!This is a typical wrong man in the wrong place with an innocent person being caught up in damning circumstantial evidence type of film that the British do so well. American Cathy O'Donnell who had never struck me as a particularly exciting actress, really rang true with her low key demeanour as Jill, who never for one moment doubted her husband's innocence. Once the legal eagles come into it, she finds no one really cares about seeing that Tom gets a fair trial - all except junior partner Tanner (Derek Farr), who when he hears Jill's impassioned plea decides to really delve into the matter and comes to the conclusion that Tom is completely innocent.Hovering in the background is the real killer, the shadowy man in the bowler hat, so obviously a local.I was so looking forward to seeing this film again as I hadn't seen it for over 20 years (and like another reviewer am very surprised that there are only a couple of reviews) and while it was not as thrilling as I remembered it, is a dependable and solid story. Nice to see an older and even more stiff upper lip (if that's possible) Ian Hunter as Tanner Snr. ,who is the prosecuting lawyer, also nice "slices of life" of the jury members and various women witnesses trying to keep their kids in line while waiting for their turn on the bench.