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Not Lamorisse's placid playmate of three years later but a boy's early peek into "this world's wickedness." A fit of childish envy has the 12-year-old lad (Andrew Ray) pilfer a friend's balloon, London still has plenty of Blitz rubble so the chase through a bombed-out house ends in a memory of Rossellini's Germany Year Zero. Witnessing the tragic accident is the seamy sharpie on the run (William Sylvester), who swiftly sinks his claws into the youngster's conscience: "You got yourself into a nice mess, haven't you, kid?" Blackmail is part of "the ignominy of boyhood" (Yeats), tykes doze off in class but the protagonist listens with alarm to a lecture on Cain and Abel after taking his family savings. Punishment from Dad (Kenneth More) or disappointment from Mum (Kathleen Ryan), which stings more? The principal models are Crichton's Hue and Cry and Reed's The Fallen Idol, J. Lee Thompson's extensive studies of Hitchcock are seen in a judicious use of object-symbols (balloon, teapot, pineapple). "Kids is proper little savages, even the best of 'em." The moll in the arcade parlor (Sandra Dorne), the teacher like a candle in the gloom (Hy Hazell), the constable who materializes at the front door (Bernard Lee). "Can I give you police protection?" "And who's going to protect me from the police?" It builds to a nifty reworking of the climax from The Third Man in a closed underground station, where the light from passing metros flashes on terrified faces and the precipice welcomes hunter and prey alike—the preferred habitat of the future director of Cape Fear. With Marjorie Rhodes, Peter Jones, Sid James, and Campbell Singer. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |