What an enormous fuss this film kicked up when it was first released in Britain. Now almost completely forgotten, it was part of the pattern of moral outrage that has followed cinema in that country since its inception, where every ten or twenty years or so a film (or genre) will be held up as morally corrupting and the newspapers and campaigners descend on them as fuel to their indignant fire. There were even, as is traditional, questions asked in Parliament about this effort as to how exactly it was passed as fit for public consumption, such was its supposedly "sickening" violence. Of course, watching it now seems ridiculous than anyone could take it so seriously, as it's no worse than can be seen on any current television soap opera's racy plotlines.
The script was adapted by director St. John L. Clowes (who unsurprisingly never directed again) from the popular (and notoriously trashy) novel by James Hadley Chase, doing its best to capture the lurid spirit of the source, and to be fair, it does manage a certain sensationalist ambience. Unfortunately, it's painfully obvious that this British production is valiantly trying and failing to emulate the film noir-ish hits of America, and most of the actors except Travers are struggling with accents of a risible quality unheard of until Carry On Cowboy came along in the sixties. Well, to be fair La Rue was actually American, but you find yourself even criticising his vocal stylings along with the others.
