The Long Memory

Plot synopsis:
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.
Informed by Craig that Captain Driver had died four years earlier, Davidson stalks Pewsey, with Lowther and Craig on his trail. Pewsey is frightened into confessing to Lowther that there was another man present at the murder. Now Lowther's marriage comes under increasing tension as he considers the possibility of his wife's perjury. Finally, she confesses she did lie to protect her father. Lowther tells her that she will have to turn herself in and he will have to resign. She asks for time, and goes to see "George Barry", who turns out to be Boyd. She asks him for money and they plan to leave the country together.
Ilse pleads with Davidson to give up his dream of revenge and start a new life with her. He confronts Fay in her home, realizes Ilse was right, and walks away. However, by sheer chance, he is then hired to deliver an urgent letter to "Barry". Davidson confronts Boyd in his office, they fight, and then Davidson stops fighting and walks away again. It is time for Boyd to meet Fay at London Waterloo station, but he pursues Davidson and shoots him in the arm.
When Fay realizes Boyd is not coming, she attempts suicide by jumping in front of an oncoming tube train, but is stopped. She leaves with police sent by her husband after he read her farewell note.
Davidson flees to the barge, but Boyd is waiting for him. After a chase, Boyd is about to kill Davidson when he is shot dead by Jackson. Ilse and Davidson refuse further help from the police, leaving to deal with their pasts together.

Tags: revenge, flashback

Review:
The moral bleakness surrounding  John Mills, as a man unjustly jailed and now seeking revenge, is reflected in the powerfully stark black and white landscape images which accompany the action.
I have seen "The Long Memory" twice, and was sufficiently impressed (and like John Mills) that I bought the book when I found it.
To my delight (that's how I like films) it was close to the film, and I realized that much of the quality of the film, beyond its strong visual imagery of London dockside slums, damaged by the Blitz (you have to know this: there is no sign saying "house flattened by bomb"), and post- war austerity (rationing continued in Britain into the early 1950s!), is directly due to the book author Howard Clewes (about whom little is available on the internet).Despite not LOOKING like the author described him, John Mills acts the character described by the author, as do the rest of the cast.The post-World-War-II setting is crucial to appreciating the bleakness of the film.
In fact things were probably tougher than during the flashback sequence to the Depression, when the young Mills character is accidentally drawn into cross-Channel smuggling of wanted criminals, and contraband.The old "beachcomber's" singing of a traditional English folksong is a haunting addition to the film that does not appear in the book..
It stars John Mills, John McCallum, Elizabeth Sellars, Eva Bergh and Geoffrey Keen.
Plot sees Mills as Phillip Davidson, a man released from prison after serving 12 years for a murder he didn't commit.
Finding a base home on a dilapidated barge in a boggy Thames inlet, Davidson sets about finding the liars who were responsible for his incarceration.Moody and often downbeat, The Long Memory is a well directed and acted British crime thriller.
A good move that, even if the big culmination of the movie is a touch too contrived and not the moody high point it could have been.John Mills was already established as an actor of note due to his fine work in the 40's, so this off the cuff film was, in his own words, merely a "job" for him, a means to pay some bills, and at first glance it looks an odd casting decision.
John Mills as a vengeful ex convict stalking the dank London and Gravesend streets in search of revenge-hanging around in a run down coffee shop-living in a slum boat, doesn't sound right.
It's only really these two elements that make the film worth seeking out by fans of noirish British crime movies.
The location filming was excellent but certain things grated on me like the tea shop in the middle of nowhere on the marshes down river from Gravesend where any passing trade could not have supported a business also the detective in regulation raincoat and hat who followed John Mills into the tea shop.I have now watched the film again today and enjoyed it much more and would say it is a little gem of the time and genre.
I am still thrilled by the location scenes in Gravesend,not quite Carol Reed's Third Man but very atmospheric, the street near the river is much changed today but the small church like structure clearly seen in background shots was a seaman's mission and is still there today also in one shot you can see the spire of St Georges,Gravesend's parish church which is where Princess Pocohontas is buried.I feel John Mills really conveys the feeling of a man with a 12 year grudge and the scenes with Ilse where the grudge melts are beautifully portrayed.In his autobiography John Mills describes the film as "an extremely good thriller" but infers that director Bob Hamer had a drink problem and describes him as twice while filming night shots he fell into the Thames while walking backwards looking through a viewfinder!.
He is today best remembered for that brilliant Ealing comedy, "Kind Hearts and Coronets", but was capable of producing serious movies as well as comedies; his "It Always Rains on Sunday", for example, is a crime thriller showing the influence of the film noir style.With "The Long Memory" from 1952, Hamer moves even closer in the direction of noir.
The hero, Philip Davidson spends 12 years in prison after being wrongly convicted for murder, a conviction procured by perjured evidence given by his fiancée Fay, her father Captain Driver and a man named Tim Pewsey.
Fay's motive for perjuring herself was to protect her elderly father, who had become mixed up in a criminal enterprise with Pewsey and another man named Boyd, the actual murderer.Some purists maintain that film noir was an exclusively American genre, but I have never concurred with that opinion, as there were also a number of British films (and indeed French ones such as "Les Diaboliques") which share the characteristics of noir, and this is one of them.
One of the classic noir features is the morally ambiguous lone male hero, and John Mills' Davidson is certainly a character of that type; had this been a Hollywood film he could have been played by Bogart or Mitchum.
After his release he goes to live in a disused barge on the marshes, a dwelling reminiscent of Richard Widmark's wooden shack by the riverside in a great American noir, "Pickup on South Street".
Davidson's closest friend is another of life's victims, wartime refugee named Ilse, and he has other allies in his fight to clear his name, including Craig, a journalist, and Superintendent Bob Lowther, a policeman who believes that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.
Lowther's position, however, is made difficult by the fact that he is married to Fay, the woman whose lies were responsible for Davidson's conviction.Other noir characteristics present in this film include dramatic, expressionistic black-and-white photography and a gritty urban setting, with the dingy backstreets of Gravesend (a riverside port east of London and not normally regarded as an important cinematic location) here fulfilling the role which in an American noir would played by Los Angeles or New York.
The setting is not, however, exclusively urban; many scenes were shot on the North Kent Marshes, the area around Gravesend and Rochester immortalised by Dickens in "Great Expectations".
It makes a fitting setting for this tale of crime and revenge and gives the film has a strong sense of place.
The film ends with justice being done, but here too there is a note of doubt and uncertainty; it is not, for example, clear whether Lowther's marriage to Fay can survive the revelations about her past.The most famous British noir is probably "The Third Man", a British-made film even though it is set in Vienna.
"The Long Memory" is less well-known, but with a strong performance from Mills in the leading role, its powerful storyline and Hamer's atmospheric direction I would place it in the same class as Carol Reed's masterpiece.
Excellent British film noir..
This is an excellent British film, which has managed to pass the test of time, and still stands today as an absorbing & well executed piece of work.
The story line is strong, and the locations are particularly memorable, especially the bleak & foreboding Kent coastline which adds significantly to the brooding atmosphere.
John Mills gives one of his most intense performances in the lead role, and demonstrates once again what an extremely fine actor he always was.
I am a fan of British cinema but I must admit that there a couple of genres that Hollywood does much better, particularly musicals but also film noir.
In fact I didn't know that the British had attempted noir until I saw Robert Hamer's `The Long Memory' which makes a fair fist of it while perhaps finally lacking the courage of it's convictions.
The doomed characters, the shadowy, desolate streetscapes and of course the femme fatale are all there and John Mills convinces as a broken man at liberty after serving 12 years for a crime he didn't commit.John McCallum and Elizabeth Sellars are perhaps a little too restrained in the English way (I know McCallum is Australian) but John Slater makes an impression as a punch-drunk ex-boxer.
Incidentally, Slater's make-up reminded me irresistibly of Mills' Oscar-winning turn in ` Ryan's Daughter' years later.In this solid, involving drama Mills has revenge in mind, Geoffrey Keene is an ethical reporter (an oxymoron?) looking for a story and nothing turns out as expected.Well worth seeing..
John Mills tracks down the real culprit of the murder he was sent to jail for in this tense British drama of exile and return.
The real murderer is now a comfortable businessman, and the visual contrasts between his dubious offices in the London docks and Mills' derelict boat far out on the river estuary gives a resonance to the film it would be hard to find in a modern setting.
Freed from jail but still imprisoned by the past, Mills' character spurns the touching companionship of another refugee on the Kent marshes (Eva Bergh) about whose past we know nothing, but it seems to be destiny that has brought them together.
This is one of the few films that resolves a labyrinthine revenge-story without the plot becoming mechanical, and the bleak monochrome visuals are part of its emotional power..
This is a highly superior British film directed by Robert Hamer.
The film features a man let out of prison after twelve years for a murder he did not commit, and his search for the people who gave false witness and put him there.
There are some wonderful location shots, and the row of abandoned barges rotting in the mudflats of the Thames Estuary is an eerie main setting for much of the action.
Elizabeth Sellars is particularly effective in making this film work.
The story culminates in the main characters having to face moral choices, so that this powerful, gripping and effective thriller is not only well made, but has a worthy purpose..
In 'The Long Memory', the desolate mudflats of the Thames estuary are used to brilliant effect to convey the spiritual desolation of Davidson, while the run-down streets and shabby domestic interiors of Gravesend vividly conjure up the dreariness of 1950s Britain..
One is the quality of the cast, which includes John McCallum, Geoffrey Keen, Thora Hird and Laurence Naismith, all seen at their best.
The other is the quality of the IMDb reviews, a sure sign of discerning viewers either remembering this film all the way from the Fifties, or at least hearing about it.Whether or not it strictly qualifies as Film Noir, it is certainly a minor-key production, set against the grey half-world of the Thames estuary, so near and so far from metropolitan life.
A wasteland dotted with neglected little cottages, tumbledown cafés, scrap metal yards and sombre mudbanks lined with the eternal barges.It is on one of these barges, empty and abandoned beyond repair, that the Mills character has made his home after serving twelve years for a crime he didn't commit.
Also a touching scene on the barge, where Mills and a beautiful young refugee (Eva Bergh) start to compare their very different kinds of psychological baggage.
John Mills' constant struggle to realise a revenge that has torn him throughout his years in prison and an inability to exact that revenge.
The Long Memory has John Mills getting out of prison after serving 12 years for a crime he didn't commit.
Mostly Eva Bergh as one of the false witnesses whose guilt is too much to bear.The Long Memory is a nicely done British noir..
John Mills is released from prison after 12 years for a murder he did not commit and had no motive for, while his only mistake was to love a beautiful young woman on board that barge who later betrayed and lied on him for the sake of her drunken father.
A Brilliantly Filmed and Acted Atmospheric Revenge Thriller....
The one thing Phillip Davidson (Mills) does wrong is fall in love.
Upon his release, he sets out for revenge on those who took those years away from him.What stands out the most is the atmospheric and beautifully shot camera work.
Perfect acting with perfect direction makes a perfect scene.Though Mills' is an outstanding actor, which he proves here, there are a few times when it gets just too melodramatic, in a soap opera way.
John Mills (slightly miscast as a rough type) plays a guy fresh from doing a 12-year-stretch who decides to get revenge on those who were responsible for him being locked up for all those years.
British Hitchcock film Noir.
This bleak film set mostly in marsh land added a certain slash wrist genre to this film.Davidson (John Mills) is a man who has just been released from doing a 12 year stint in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Seething with revenge, he starts out looking for the people who set him up so he can administer his revenge.I must say, after a while this film was engaging, and I sat through and watched to the end.
At first, John Mills would seem an unlikely choice for the leading role, but the film would not work without him.
Clearly Mr John Mills either was not aware of that piece of Eastern wisdom or he chose to ignore it.In view of his incarceration for 12 years for a murder he did not commit he would be less than human if he did not at least contemplate bloody vengeance against those who conspired to put him away.In this brilliant little Hitchcockian noir director Mr Robert Hamer makes full use of the wind - scoured mudbanks of the Thames Estuary and peoples them with an almost Dickensian selection of semi - grotesques living in barges,wooden huts and railway carriages on the riverside scrubland.
His former girl - friend - one of his persecutors - has now married the senior police officer involved in his case and ,by contrast lives a life of almost sybaritic luxury in a big 1930s villa.She and her husband are determinedly middle - class and have a little boy who wears a quartered school cap.They use linen napkins with silver rings for breakfast.She is played by Miss Elizabeth Sellars in typical "1950s repressed English Housewife" mode with plenty of clutching hands and pleading glances.Her husband,Mr John Mcallum,is that almost extinct movie species a detective with a conscience.He runs his hands round his jaw in moments of great emotion,but he doesn't have those too often.
Mr John Slater and Miss Thora Hird provide some amusement as an ill - matched couple but the film is mainly a triumph for Mr Mills,whether stalking the mean streets of Gravesend or bearding the villain in his den at the Pool of London.Incidentally,watch out for the great Mr Harold Lang making the most of a small part as viciously camp blond-rinsed minder at the bad guy's HQ.
"The Long Memory" deserves a place alongside "The Blue Lamp" and "It always rains on Sundays" in the pantheon of British noirs which,with the passing of time,are being recognised as the seminal works that have hugely influenced the TV and movie industry in the second half of the 20th century and beyond..
The Long Memory is directed by Robert Hamer, is based on the novel by Howard Clewes and stars John Mills, Geoffrey Keen, Elizabeth Sellars, John Slater, Eva Bergh and John McCallum.Davidson (John Mills) goes aboard a boat to ask his girlfriends father if he can marry her.
Davidson is wrongly accused of the crime by his girlfriend and her father so they don't incriminate the man actually responsible.Wrongly convicted and sent to prison Davidson dreams of getting revenge.
His girlfriend (Elizabeth Sellars) is now married to a Police Inspector (John McCallum).
An eager journalist called Craig (Geoffrey Keen)believes Davidson when he says he is innocent and he follows him as he goes after those who were on the boat that night.The film is interesting too for the viewer because part of you want's Davidson to dish out some revenge but at the same time you don't want him to, if he does he will end up back in prison again or worse receive the death penalty.
It's a rare dark role for Mills and he is brilliant, it's a shame he was never able to play more characters like this.
He really lets us see the rage this man has lurking just beneath the surface and lets you see how driven he is to get revenge.The ever wonderful Keen is a treat as the journalist who knows he's on to a good story and also believes in Davidson's innocence.Eva Bergh is excellent as a young waitress at a café who befriends Davidson and ends up falling in love with him, their scenes together are very tender and Mills does a good job of showing he is coming to care for her but doesn't want to risk trusting her again after the way his girlfriend treated him.
You want this pair to get together and you hope all will work out well for them.Sellars is good as the woman who only cares about herself and doesn't realise until much later just what her accusations cost Davidson.This is a very good thriller and I love it's use of grimy and stark real locations.
Mudflats of Kent's barren landscape (the suitably named Gravesend, to be precise)  and then John Mills at Waterloo Station.
He's so hell bent on revenge that he's probably going to Hell.Here, Hell is a memory you can't let go of.In flashback, we see his fiancé's (Elizabeth Sellars) father who's helping to ship someone on the run to Rotterdam.
Mills gets involved with a rampaging Boyd (John Chandos) and the boat goes down in flames.
He's convicted of murder when his fiancé and Pewsey (John Slater), a bronchial moron, lie in court that there was no "other man" on the boat.Twelve years later, Mills' fiancé is married to the police officer involved in the original case (John McCallum).