Half a century ago Graham Greene specifically forbad that this adaptation of his 1929 novel be included in a season of films drawn from his work (it seems far more like Daphne Du Maurier so he may have had a point).
As austerity Britain emerged shivering from the harshest winter in living memory the great British public must have found the sight of a tousle-haired young Dickie Attenborough - playing a role spectacularly spineless even for him - stripped to the waist and threatened with hot irons bracing indeed (we later see him flogged by Ronald Shiner, which must have added insult to injury).
Despite the winning presence of titian-haired temptress Jean Kent and sweet young thing Joan Greenwood (the latter attempting what was presumably a Sussex accent) the implications of Attenborough's relationship with Michael Redgrave were plainly not lost on viewers at the time as the heading above drawn from a review by Angela Milne in 'The Observer' amply attests.
As austerity Britain emerged shivering from the harshest winter in living memory the great British public must have found the sight of a tousle-haired young Dickie Attenborough - playing a role spectacularly spineless even for him - stripped to the waist and threatened with hot irons bracing indeed (we later see him flogged by Ronald Shiner, which must have added insult to injury).
Despite the winning presence of titian-haired temptress Jean Kent and sweet young thing Joan Greenwood (the latter attempting what was presumably a Sussex accent) the implications of Attenborough's relationship with Michael Redgrave were plainly not lost on viewers at the time as the heading above drawn from a review by Angela Milne in 'The Observer' amply attests.