Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1953
The Long Memory
Buy The Long Memory now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'The Long Memory' is a black-and-white 1953 British crime film directed by Robert Hamer and based on the 1951 novel of the same title by Howard Clewes. Filmed on London Waterloo railway station, the North Kent Marshes on the Thames Estuary and the dingy backstreets of Gravesend, Kent, mainly Queen Street, its bleak setting and grim atmosphere have led to its acclaim as a British example of film noir.Spicer, Andrew 'European Film Noir', Manchester University Press, 2008,
Plot
Phillip Davidson boards a boat and embraces Fay Driver. Then he goes down below to try to convince her father, Captain Driver, not to involve Fay in his criminal activity. However, Boyd brings aboard Delaney (a man he has agreed to smuggle out of the country) and two henchmen. When Boyd demands that Delaney pay him 500, rather than 200, a fight erupts, and Boyd knocks Delaney out. A broken oil lamp starts a fire, attracting the attention of the authorities, and Philip is fished out of the water. A charred corpse is found in the sunken boat. The Drivers and Tim Pewsey perjure themselves by identifying the dead man as Boyd, rather than Delaney, and claiming there was no other man present. This leads to Philip's conviction for Boyd's murder. Granted leniency, he spends 12 years in prison.
Upon his release, he sets out to get even with the witnesses. He is kept under surveillance by the police on the orders of Superintendent Bob Lowther, who is now married to Fay. Philip finds an abandoned barge claimed by Jackson, a kindly old hermit. His plan is to live rough on the barge while he searches for the witnesses. But three people attempt – initially unsuccessfully – to befriend him. First, Jackson withdraws an initial request for rent. Then Craig, a newspaperman who suspects him to be innocent, arrives; Philip throws him out, but Craig tumbles down an open hatch and is knocked unconscious, and Philip rescues him. Finally, he happens upon a sailor attempting to rape Ilse, a traumatised wartime refugee; when he rescues her and allows her to stay on the barge, she falls in love with him.
Informed by Craig that Captain Driver had died four years earlier, Philip stalks Pewsey, with Lowther and Craig on his trail. Pewsey is frightened into confessing to Lowther that there was another man present at the murder. Now Lowther's marriage comes under increasing tension as he considers the possibility of his wife's perjury. Finally, she confesses she did lie to protect her father. Lowther tells her that she will have to turn herself in and he will have to resign. She asks for time, and goes to see "George Berry", who turns out to be Boyd. She asks him for money and they plan to leave the country together.
Ilse pleads with Philip to give up his dream of revenge and start a new life with her. He confronts Fay in her home, realizes Ilse was right, and walks away.
When Fay realises Boyd is not coming, she attempts suicide by trying to jump in front of an oncoming Waterloo & City line train, but is stopped by other people on the platform. She leaves with police sent by her husband after he read her farewell note.
However, by sheer chance, Philip is then hired to deliver an urgent letter to "Berry". Philip confronts Boyd in his office, they fight, and then Philip stops fighting and walks away again. It is time for Boyd to meet Fay at London Waterloo railway station, but he pursues Philip and shoots him in the arm.
Philip flees to the barge, but Boyd is waiting for him. After a chase, Boyd is about to kill Philip when he is shot dead by Jackson.
Ilse and Philip refuse further help from the police, leaving to deal with their pasts and futures together.
Cast
* John Mills as Phillip Davidson
* John McCallum as Superintendent Bob Lowther
* Elizabeth Sellars as Fay Lowther
* Eva Bergh as Ilse
* Geoffrey Keen as Craig, a newspaperman
* Michael Martin Harvey as Jackson
* John Chandos as Spencer Boyd, alias George Berry
* John Slater as Tim Pewsey
* Thora Hird as Mrs Pewsey
* Vida Hope as Alice Gedge
* Harold Lang as Boyd's chauffeur/receptionist
* Mary Mackenzie as Gladys
* John Glyn-Jones as Gedge
* John Horsley as Bletchley
* Fred Johnson as Driver
* Laurence Naismith as Hasbury
* Peter Jones as Fisher, another reporter
* Christopher Beeny as Mickey, the Lowthers' son
* Ernest Clark as Prosecuting Counsel (uncredited)
* Henry Edwards as Judge (uncredited)
* Arthur Mullard as Police Constable (uncredited)
* Denis Shaw as Shaw (uncredited)
* Julian Somers as Delaney (uncredited)
* Russell Waters as Scotson (uncredited)
Production
The film was made at Pinewood Studios and on location in Kent around Gravesend and at Shad Thames, a street next to Tower Bridge in central London. Many of the houses shown in the film were demolished soon afterwards. It was the last film of Henry Edwards, a major British star of the 1920s and 1930s, who had a small role as a judge early in the film.
Premiere and reception
The film received its gala premiere at the Leicester Square Theatre on 22 January 1953, with Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester as guests of honour,'The Times', 23 January 1953, page 8: Court Cicular - found in The Times Digital Archive 21 November 2013 and entered general release the following day. 'The Times' film reviewer found the film a bit dull and self-important, but gave director Hamer credit for "effective use of the film's natural background, the mud and desolation of the flats of the Thames Estuary."'The Times', 23 January 1953, page 2: Film review, "The Long Memory" - found in The Times Digital Archive 2013-11-21
References
Buy The Long Memory now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1953