The Long Memory
| The Long Memory | |
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Original British 1953 quad film poster
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| Directed by | Robert Hamer |
| Produced by | Hugh Stewart |
| Screenplay by | Robert Hamer Frank Harvey |
| Based on |
The Long Memory (novel) by Howard Clewes |
| Starring |
John Mills John McCallum Elizabeth Sellars Geoffrey Keen |
| Music by | William Alwyn |
| Cinematography | Harry Waxman |
| Edited by | Gordon Hales |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | GFD (UK) |
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Release date
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Running time
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96 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Box office | £110,000 |
The Long Memory is a black-and-white 1953 British crime film directed by Robert Hamer and based on the 1951 novel of the same name by Howard Clewes. Filmed on the North Kent Marshes on the Thames Estuary and the dingy backstreets of Gravesend, mainly Queen Street, its bleak setting and grim atmosphere have led to its acclaim as a British example of film noir.
Phillip Davidson (John Mills) boards a boat and embraces Fay Driver (Elizabeth Sellars). Then he goes down below to try to convince her father, Captain Driver, not to involve Fay in his criminal activity. However, Boyd (John Chandos) brings aboard Delaney (a man he has agreed to smuggle out of the country) and two henchmen. When Boyd demands that Delaney pay him £500, rather than £200, a fight erupts, and Boyd knocks Delaney out. A broken oil lamp starts a fire, attracting the attention of the authorities, and Davidson is fished out of the water. A charred corpse is found in the sunken boat. The Drivers and Tim Pewsey perjure themselves by identifying the dead man as Boyd, rather than Delaney, and claiming there was no other man present. This leads to Davidson's conviction for Boyd's murder. Granted leniency, he spends 12 years in prison.
Upon his release, he sets out to get even with the witnesses. He is kept under surveillance by the police on the orders of Superintendent Bob Lowther (John McCallum), who is now married to Fay. Davidson finds an abandoned barge claimed by Jackson, a kindly old hermit. His plan is to live rough on the barge while he searches for the witnesses. But three people attempt – initially unsuccessfully – to befriend him. First Jackson withdraws an initial request for rent. Then Craig, a newspaperman who suspects him to be innocent, arrives; Davidson throws him out, but Craig tumbles down an open hatch and is knocked unconscious, and Davidson rescues him. Finally he happens upon a sailor attempting to rape Ilse, a traumatised wartime refugee; when he rescues her and allows her to stay on the barge, she falls in love with him.
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Wikipedia