Eight O'Clock Walk
Dir: Lance Comfort
1953
**
Eight O'Clock Walk is a seldom seen court room thriller starring Richard Attenborough as a man accused of the murder of a little girl based on fairly shoddy evidence. It's successful with it's intended anti-capital punishment message but it's not particularly clever with its twist. The evidence used to free our innocent protagonist is just as shoddy as the evidence that got him locked up. The film is very dated and I'm sure it felt that way at the time. The acting was a good 20 years past its best, especially when you compare it to other great films like The Wild One, From Here to Eternity, The Wages of Fear, all made in 1953 and all pioneers in a new wave of film making. It's not all bad though, Attenborough is great and it's nice to see pictures of old London. It's a surprising message though, 'loose lips sink ships' would have still been in peoples minds I would have thought, the War only ended 8 years previous.