Sentenza che scotta

During the blitz a boy and his mother are evacuated to America. Returning to Liverpool in 1959, the now-grown boy (Van Johnson) learnes his father was not a war hero but a convicted murderer who is still alive.

Two American stars (Johnson and Vera Miles) and a passel of familiar British supporting players. An AJ. Cronin novel.

I wish Hitchcock had done it. But we can't judge a movie by what it isn't, but what it is.

The movie has lots of British officialdom stonewalling, Van Johnson in constantly angry mode, and no sense of humor. With all the potentially wacky Btitish types what might Sir Alfred . . . Sorry.

Lots of twists and uncovered secrets, but it all comes off as kind of blah though there is one shocking shot of a road accident.

Jack Cardiff proved his Oscar-winning adaptation was no mere flash in the pan with this powerful drama based on a novel by A. J. Cronin atmospherically set in Liverpool. It pulls no punches in depicting the callousness and disregard of the establishment as they close ranks when they stand to lose political capital from the exposure of a miscarriage of justice.

Bernard Lee is unforgettable as the hero's father coarsened by nearly twenty years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, and Vera Miles has an offbeat role as a woman who befriends the hero but with an aversion to being touched which provides added complexity to an already tense tale.

A.J.Cronin has made a great novel out of some very difficult traumas, as an American comes home to Liverpool, where he was born, and finds his father in prison for life. Van Johnson as the son came home just to finally get to know something of what really happened to his father, and he immediately gets immersed in a mess of complications and worries. After recovery from the shock of finding his father having escaped hanging by a hair's breath, he gradually is more certainly convinced that his father was innocent, framed and sacrificed for other people's crimes, but his boat is sailing back to America in four days, and he has to be on it, which the local police superintendent is especially keen to make sure that he is. Naturally he stays to investigate the matter further. Jack Cardiff who directed this complicated film did not direct many films, but he was one of the most important cinematographers off British cinema and was the director of photography for all the major Powell-Pressburger films and also of "The Magic Box" among many others. This is not a film to appeal to the great multitude and make a big box office success, but it falls into a more singular kind of category of "human noirs" like all the early films of John and Roy Boulting. The acting though is superb, and when you see and enjoy Vera Miles as Lena in this very poignant drama you understand why Hitchcock wanted her for "Vertigo". She makes the deepest impression, Van Johnson is himself as usual as the perfect candidate for a tragic character, and as the old tragic lawyer who saved the victim's life from hanging, you find the old veteran Emlyn Williams in a very sensitive role. Bernard Lee as the father who almost gets hanged for nothing also provides perhaps the only shocking role of the film, as you first get to know him playing in the park jovially with his son and then after twenty years in prison, which life has made his character almost completely unrecognisable, - and yet the son finds him again, and this is the golden moment of truth of the book and the film.

Beyond This Place (AKA: Web of Evidence) is directed by Jack Cardiff and adapted to screenplay by Ken Taylor from the A.J. Cronin novel. It stars Van Johnson, Vera Miles, Emlyn Williams, Bernard Lee and Jean Kent. Music is by Douglas Gamley and cinematography by Wilkie Cooper.

Paul Mathry (Johnson) was evacuated from Liverpool to America during WWII. Twenty years later he is back in Liverpool believing his father had died a hero during the conflict. The reality is that his father, Patrick (Lee), has been serving a prison sentence for the murder of his pregnant mistress. But something doesn't seem right about the trial, so Paul does a little digging...

Not a great deal to get excited about here, it's a routine mystery - cum - thriller, that is based in Liverpool (not London as some reviewers elsewhere seem to think) but drafts in two American name actors to supposedly perk things up. It never really gets off the ground for dramatic impact, sending Johnson on a mission of truth and justice without ever really putting him in jeopardy. While his relationship with Miles' troubled Lena Anderson is a subplot of no consequence, as is her back story which is sad but isn't given any dramatic heft.

On the plus side is oodles of noirish atmosphere, various camera workings of substance and scene staging that lift proceedings. Night scenes are suitably cloaked with an air of unease, be it blinking pelican lights or spinning shadow lamps, Cardiff and Cooper get the most out of the meagre budget. Other sequences see a shot through distorted glass and one excellent one that has Kent framed in striped surroundings - while she is wearing a leopard skin coat, the contrast of which suits her character perfectly.

Value here for noir visualists, but instantly forgettable once the berserker finale has played itself out. 6/10

Tidbid: James Bond fans will note that it sees Lee and Geoffrey Keen together, they both would later feature in a number of Bond movies.

Van Johnson was evacuated from Liverpool to the United States during the Second World War. His mother died young and he is working his way around the world before he settles down to a career in electronics. He doesn't know what became of his father, so he makes enquiries. He discovers he has been in prison for sixteen years for strangling a young girl. He investigates and finds cracks in the official story, even as officials make it difficult for him to find out anything.

Something has gone awry in this production. Van Johnson, at 43, was too old for his role, and the scriptwriters, working from an A.J. Cronin novel, put a lot of English usage in his mouth, instead of American. The pace is erratic, and the subplot involving Vera Miles, with whom he has fallen in love, seems like to be added to the story, without contributing to it.

That is not to say that there are not some strengths to this move. Bernard Miles, everyone's favorite M from the James Bond series, is brilliant as Johnson's father, brutalized by years of prison. Emlyn Williams is also around, playing a creepy man to perfection. Anthony Newlands as a newspaperman who gets the investigation moving and connects the dots, is a godsend to this movie. It's too bad they can't make this obviously good story into a good movie.