NEVER LOOK BACK
UK, 1952, 73 minutes, Black-and-white.
Rosamund John, Hugh Sinclair, Guy Middleton, Henry Edwards, Terrence Longden, Brenda de Banzie.
Directed by Francis Searle.
A brief second feature from 1952, a curio item for those interested in the British film industry in the late 1940s, early 1950s. And it has a cast of British character actors, including an early appearance by Brenda tde Banzie and an uncredited appearance by Harry H.Corbett as the guard in the prison.
This is a film about lawyers and crime, raising ethical issues, about a defence lawyer having personal issues with the man she is defending.
Rosamund John plays a lawyer who has become a KC, celebrates with another lawyer who is in love with her, Hugh Sinclair. However, she is committed to her career. She is sent congratulatory flowers and remembers a man she had fallen in love with in Italy years earlier. He then arrives, evokes memories of the past, says he has fallen on hard times and she offers him the couch for the night, knowing that it might risk her reputation.
The visitor has mentioned his girlfriend and, the next morning, she is found dead. He is arrested. The lawyer decides to defend him against the advice of her partner and his father. And the circumstances mean that her friend lawyer is to be the prosecutor.
Much of the second part of the film is in the court, the interrogation of witnesses, the defendant clearly moving towards a guilty verdict, especially when a woman of dubious reputation, played by Brenda de Banzie, testifies that she saw the defendant at the time of the death, his lawyer interrogating the witnesses to try to find extenuating circumstances. When it seems that he will be guilty, the defendant causes a tantrum in the courtroom, appealing to the lawyer to defend him. She resigns, later going to the witness box and admitting the truth.
Found not guilty, there is confrontation between the defendant and the prosecutor, and the clear indications that the murderer had set up the situation, to have an alibi when he went out to kill his girlfriend.
The moral issues and legal issues are set out clearly – but, with a rather sudden happy ending.
