Nowhere to Go – 1958 | 87 mins | Thriller | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Seth Holt made his directorial debut in 1958 with Nowhere to Go, and revealed a talent of great promise, though his death in 1971 meant that he had time to make only half-a-dozen films, most of them quirkily-conceived thrillers with elements of surprise and shock. His film for Ealing does not fit the general him tradition, although it does point the way the cinema will go long after Ealing is dead and buried. The story was adapted by Holt and Kenneth Tynan from a thriller by Donald Mackenzie, in which a crook called Gregory (played by George Nader in the film) steals a collection of antique coins from a wealthy American visitor to London, and puts the money he receives for them into a safety deposit before his arrest. He is sentenced to ten years rather than the five which he was expecting, and his partner helps him to escape from jail, hiding him in a London flat.

There is a tussle for possession of the safety box key, and Gregory leaves his treacherous partner bound and gagged, but fails to obtain shelter from other members of the underworld when it is known that the man has died of suffocation. A young socialite (Maggie Smith made her film debut in this role) decides to protect him and takes him to her parents’ estate in Wales. He is later shot by a farm worker, and dies believing that the girl has betrayed him.

This essay in criminality is a long way removed from the simplistic world of The Blue Lamp. The influences are more those of the American and French crime films of the Fifties. The action moves along at a crisp rate, helped by the cool jazz soundtrack of Dizzy Reece. The film ends on a resounding pessimistic chord as the girl reads the thief’s farewell note and then walks off into the landscape away from camera, a moment of chic despair characteristic of the period. Holt knew his cinema and could fashion a modish work with skill and a certain slickness.

Extract© George Perry: Forever Ealing.