Cat & Mouse | |
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Directed by | Paul Rotha |
Screenplay by | Paul Rotha |
Based on | Novel by John Creasey |
Produced by | Paul Rotha |
Starring | Lee Patterson Ann Sears Victor Maddern |
Cinematography | Wolfgang Suschitzky |
Production company | Anvil Films |
Distributed by | Eros Films (UK) |
Release date |
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Running time | 79 min |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Cat & Mouse (also known as Cat and Mouse; U.S. title: The Desperate Men) is a 1958 British crime drama film directed by Paul Rotha, starring Lee Patterson, Ann Sears and Victor Maddern. [1] [2] The screenplay was by Rotha, based on the novel Cat and Mouse by John Creasey, writing as Michael Halliday.
A deserter from the American army holds a young British woman hostage, believing she knows the location of a fortune in diamonds.
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "An interesting experiment in low-budget feature production by a distinguished documentary director, this film has a strong sense of place and period. The genteel decaying London streets, the cold suburbs, the mood of bitterness and resentment expressed by the fugitive American are all very much of our time, and are presented with vigour and feeling. ... One of the great virtues of this film is that it achieves excitement and tension without exploiting violence." [3]
The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 3/5 stars, writing: "This claustrophobic thriller denies documentary director Paul Rotha the chance to demonstrate his facility with realism. Yet he still generates a fair amount of suspense ... This is superior to the majority of British B-movies made at the time " [4]
Paul Rotha was a British documentary film-maker, film historian and critic.
Wolfgang Suschitzky, BSC, was an Austrian-born British documentary photographer, as well as a cinematographer perhaps best known for his collaboration with Paul Rotha in the 1940s and his work on Mike Hodges' 1971 film Get Carter.
Victor Jack Maddern was an English actor. He was described by The Telegraph as having "one of the most distinctive and eloquent faces in post-war British cinema."
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