Tightly crafted British noir, loaded with waterfront atmosphere, a jewel robbery gone bad, and a merchant seaman caught in the middle of the con. Director Basil Dearden, who went on to bigger, if not better things, nails hardscrabble dockside life, all shot on location: dreary tenements, dance halls and the cheap amusements ship’s crews flock to on shore. One of them, Bonar Colleano, wiseguy & small-time smuggler, gets involved as a secret courier for the jewel thieves, a safe, easy gig. But the police catch on to the caper before he and the contraband get back to ship. So he hands the stuff off to best pal Earl Cameron, an easygoing Jamaican less likely to be searched. What Colleano doesn’t know is that a man has been killed during the heist, and all bets are off. Very well plotted, with plenty of believable complications & characters, including three excellent girlfriends of wavering constancy. One relationship, for Cameron and a white girl he picks up, quite exceptional, with racial niceties & prejudices very advanced for the period. (Cameron, now over 100 & still working, luckier than the intriguing Bonar Colleano who died young in a car crash.) A real find here.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/DOUBLE-BILL: Jules Dassin’s classic noir NIGHT AND THE CITY/’50, shot in London the previous year, an obvious influence. With both cinematographers (NIGHT’s Max Greene and POOL’s Gordon Dines) aping Robert Krasker’s legendary lensing on THE THIRD MAN/’49.
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