Time Without Pity (1957)

Michael Redgrave seldom turns in a bad performance and occasionally - The Browning Version - he unleashes a great one so he was definitely the selling point for this slightly off-the-wall entry. Several people in talking about this give Emlyn Williams a credit for the original play Someone Waiting but the 'official' credits here list only Ben Barzman and the implication is that it's an Original screenplay. Beginning with the murder of a young girl with the murderer clearly seen we then jump forward to a time when another man, clearly innocent, has been arrested, charged, stood trial, been found guilty and is now hours from execution, all this off screen. Enter Redgrave, flown in from Canada at the last minute and determined to save his son. The film can't decide if it's a race-against-time thriller to find the real murderer or an attack on capital punishment but Redgrave is always a good bet.

When a film goes wrong, I find it's often a tossup as to who is to blame - the actors or the director. And what it comes down to, is whether it's one actor not doing a good job, or multiple actors not doing a good job. The former is likely the fault of the actor; the latter is likely the director's fault. In this film, I believer it's the director's fault.Certainly, Michael Redgrave is guilty of serious over-acting in this film. And to top it off, he seems very awkward throughout the film. Bill Williams as Lee CrenshawLeo McKern is also guilty of serious over-acting in this film. Paul Daneman seems terribly awkward, as well.On the acting front, that doesn't mean that every performance is bad. Ann Todd and Peter Cushing do well here.The story itself is decent, although trying to cram everything into a 24 hour time frame seemed awfully unreasonable. A 2-3 day story arc would have worked better and been more realistic.I've never been very impressed with British films from this era (they've gotten very good in recent years). And, I'm not very impressed with this film. It had potential, but the acting and direction ruined it. The one really high point -- a clever ending.

Rather hysterical but engrossing and very well-acted melodrama (particularly by Michael Redgrave, a BAFTA nominee, and Leo McKern), ostensibly a murder mystery but with a manifest position against capital punishment.Interestingly, the culprit is known from the very beginning but, saddled with an alcoholic hero, one is never sure whether he'll be able to prove his son's innocence of murder; the denouement, then, is terrific - as unexpected as it is ironic. Losey's expressionist style (aided by Freddie Francis's chiaroscuro cinematography) is in full sway here: actually, according to film critic Gerard Legrand - writing in "The Movie" - this was the film were the director really came into his own; I can't vouch for that myself since I have yet to watch three important films he made earlier i.e. THE PROWLER (1951) and M (1951), both Hollywood productions, and THE SLEEPING TIGER (1954), Losey's first effort following his relocation to Britain.It's undeniably a powerful film though relatively verbose (it was adapted from a play by Emlyn Williams); like I said, Losey drives his actors to fever pitch and he has chosen a most capable cast - including Ann Todd, Alec McCowen, Peter Cushing, Renee' Houston, Lois Maxwell, Joan Plowright, Peter Copley and Richard Wordsworth! The only false note throughout, perhaps, is to be found in the score by Tristram Cary - which is so over-the-top that, at times, it even drowns out the dialogue!

This Emlyn Williams play about the relentless search for truth intertwines craftily in and out of the lives of some very imperfect human beings and builds to a surprising but inevitable ending.Redgrave, McKern, Todd, Plowright, Maxwell, Daneman and the rest of the cast all do well to bring this gritty black and white puzzle into focus. The son played by Alec McGowen was a bit over-the-top at times but then his character's madness required that.It's not a masterpiece...but I don't expect there are too many of those around. But what it does provide in dramatic tension elicits interest and compassion from the viewer until the very end.The Tristram Cary music must be cited here for its unflinching power to shake us up and take notice of the action on the screen. If there is any masterful work here it is the music.The only qualm was the less-than-satisfying editing which tended to bring the down the tension-building instead of heightening it.Yes, it was a low-budget movie...it's a cop-out to say that in view of the fine acting of the magnificent cast which redeemed it many times over.I'd recommend this to fans of film-noir, classic thrillers, mysteries and the British cinema.