Cloudburst – 1951 | 83 mins | Mystery | B&W

Plot Synopsis

The first film Hammer film to be specifically geared for widespread American acceptance was Cloudburst, with a well-known Hollywood actor, Robert Preston, in the leading role. It was made by Hammer, the first film to be shot at the company’s new Bray Studios at Windsor (a converted private house), and was released in the States by United Artists. The rest of the cast was British and the film used a fairly common device of making Preston’s character into a Canadian to make him more acceptable to British audiences.

In Cloudburst, John Graham (Preston) is an intelligence officer working at the Foreign Office who tracks down and kills two criminals who have accidentally killed his pregnant wife Carol (Elizabeth Sellars), during a getaway. He then attempts to commit suicide and is left to contemplate the futility of personal revenge. It was sombre stuff compared to the Hammer films that followed.