The October Man (1947)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- After surviving an accident that left a girl dead, Jim Ackland struggles to recover from a brain injury. Upon his release from the hospital, he stumbles into a murder plot involving Molly Newman, a mysterious woman pursued by the criminal underground. Ackland is soon framed for murder and must clear his name while maintaining his tenuous grip on reality. Unfortunately, he can't be certain that he's innocent.
- Actors:
- John Mills, Joan Greenwood, Edward Chapman, Kay Walsh, Joyce Carey, Catherine Lacey, Adrianne Allen, Felix Aylmer, Frederick Piper, John Boxer, Patrick Holt, George Benson, Jack Melford, Esme Beringer, Ann Wilton
- Directors:
- Roy Ward Baker
- Producers:
- Eric Ambler
- Writers:
- Eric Ambler
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama
- Collections:
- Getting to Know..., Getting to Know: John Mills, Introducing a British Film Family, Top 10 Autumn Films, Top Films
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Reviews (1) of The October Man
British Noir. - The October Man review by Steve
As the influence of American film noir spread after WWII, John Mills emerged as the best of the British actors to play the archetype of the jinxed male dupe at the mercy of malign destiny. He is the centre of Roy Ward Baker's debut, drifting through a striking but sombre shadow world of danger and rain and loss.
The pitch for The October Man is an old noir stand-by; a man of unreliable rationality is accused of a crime he didn't commit and must clear his name. Mills plays a troubled stranger who leaves hospital after a crack on the head. When a floozy from his austere guesthouse is found dead, no one believes his story.
If this British noir lacks Hollywood glamour, then that accords with the downbeat mood of the film. This isn't so much existential despair, as the depressing greyness of the postwar years. Stupid rules are ascendant. Everybody is cold and badly fed. And truth yields to gossip and narrow minds.
While Eric Ambler's whodunit structure works well, what endures is the emotional and material poverty of a threadbare country. Where a woman being into the room of a gentleman is a scandal. Where the old have no fuel. And the police are dour and stupid. It's a powerful evocation of a national malaise.