The script was based on an actual experiment by the Liverpool Police Department in 1949, when they created a small number of specialized officers to deal with youth crimes.
Not given a U.S. release due to what the studio thought was a glut of similar juvenile crime films such as Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Blackboard Jungle (1955) for example. However, it was distributed in the U.S. in the 1960's to capitalize on the popularity of David McCallum in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964) and the fact that The Beatles were from Liverpool.
Shot on location at Gerard Gardens in Liverpool where director Basil Dearden thought the Art Deco tenements were a good representation of a city slum. However, the film's set dressers thought the area was not dilapidated enough and set out to make it so - much to the dismay of the actual inhabitants. Built in 1935 and modeled on "working class" housing then being built in Germany and Austria, the complex was demolished in 1987.
Shot July-September 1957, copyright 1958.
Stanley Baker and David McCallum had starred together as brothers in the previous year's Hell Drivers (1957).