The Weapon

Steve Cochran - Mark Andrews
Lizabeth Scott - Elsa Jenner
Herbert Marshall - Insp. Mackenzie
Nicole Maurey - Vivienne
Jon Whiteley - Erik Jenner
George Cole - Joshua Henry
Laurence Naismith - Jamison

A well-crafted, energetic suspense thriller directed by Val Guest and treading similar territory to J Lee Thompson’s The Yellow Balloon (1953). Produced by Hal E Chester and starring imported American actors Steve Cochran and Lizabeth Scott, the neat melodrama was aimed primarily at US audiences.

Set in 1950s London. Erik Jenner (Jon Whiteley), the son of a widowed immigrant, finds a German Luger pistol amongst the blitzed-out ruins of Aldergate and a struggle over the gun’s ownership results in the accidental shooting of his playmate. Erik hides the weapon and runs away. The gun turns out to be the murder weapon in a case involving a US Army officer 10 years earlier. Scotland Yard Supt. Mackenzie (Herbert Marshall) and US Army CID officer Capt. Mark Andrews (Steve Cochran) go in pursuit of the boy in the hope reopening the former crime case. Also on the child’s trail is the killer, Joshua Henry (George Cole) who discovers news of gun’s retrieval from a newspaper story. Henry summons’s Erik’s school friends to hunt for him by posing as a Scotland Yard inspector, and attempts to get first-hand news of the child’s location by ingratiating himself to Mrs Jenner.