Robert Hamer was reunited with two of the stars of 'Dead of Night' on this gaslight Victorian melodrama very different from the contemporary fare on which the reputation of Ealing Studios now rests. Hamer was to return to this era in 'Kind Hearts and Coronets' bringing along his distinctive world-weary brand of cynicism that totally lacks the nostalgic flamboyance of the bodice-rippers with which Gainsborough were synonymous.
Most of the women are manipulative and mercenary and most of the men are either weaklings or feckless spongers; while different but equal in their sheer nastiness are Googie Withers as a hip-swinging floozie who's eyes light up as she (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) administers strychnene and Mervyn Johns as a bible-spouting domestic bully who watches murder trials for pleasure, practises vivisection and deplores '"the modern tendency towards short sermons'.
Most of the women are manipulative and mercenary and most of the men are either weaklings or feckless spongers; while different but equal in their sheer nastiness are Googie Withers as a hip-swinging floozie who's eyes light up as she (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) administers strychnene and Mervyn Johns as a bible-spouting domestic bully who watches murder trials for pleasure, practises vivisection and deplores '"the modern tendency towards short sermons'.