Desperate Moment | |
---|---|
Directed by | Compton Bennett |
Written by | George H. Brown Patrick Kirwan |
Based on | Desperate Moment by Martha Albrand |
Produced by | George H. Brown |
Starring | Dirk Bogarde Mai Zetterling Philip Friend |
Cinematography | C.M. Pennington-Richards |
Edited by | John D. Guthridge |
Music by | Ronald Binge |
Production company | George H. Brown Productions (as Fanfare) |
Distributed by | General Film Distributors (Uk) |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 88 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Desperate Moment is a 1953 British thriller film directed by Compton Bennett and starring Dirk Bogarde, Mai Zetterling and Philip Friend. [1] It is based on the 1951 novel of the same title by Martha Albrand.
It was made at Pinewood Studios and on location in West Germany including scenes shot at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. The film's sets were designed by the art director Maurice Carter.
In the years immediately after World War II, a Dutchman, ex resistance, is sentenced to life imprisonment for a murder, committed during a robbery, that he confessed to but did not commit. After discovering that the girl he has loved since childhood is not dead, as he had been told, he escapes from prison and goes on the run through a devastated Germany in search of the witnesses who can clear him, with her help. But the witnesses begin to die apparently accidental deaths shortly before he finds them...
The New York Times wrote, "the sum and substance of this production...is a great deal of panting exercise within and all over two cities, offering little about which to care" [2] whereas TV Guide found it "quite suspenseful, with Bogarde turning in an exceptionally fine performance." [3]
Mai Elisabeth Zetterling was a Swedish film director, novelist and actress.
Sir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor, novelist and screenwriter. Initially a matinée idol in films such as Doctor in the House (1954) for the Rank Organisation, he later acted in art house films, evolving from "heartthrob to icon of edginess".
Victim is a 1961 British neo-noir suspense film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Dirk Bogarde and Sylvia Syms. The first British film to explicitly name homosexuality and deal with it sympathetically, it premiered in the UK on 31 August 1961 and in the US the following February.
The Night Porter is a 1974 Italian psychological war drama film co-written and directed by Liliana Cavani. It stars Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling, with Philippe Leroy, Gabriele Ferzetti and Isa Miranda in supporting roles. Set in Vienna in 1957, the film centers on the sadomasochistic relationship between a former Nazi concentration camp officer (Bogarde) and one of his inmates (Rampling).
Ill Met by Moonlight (1957), released in the USA as Night Ambush, is a film by the British writer-director-producer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and the last movie they made together through their production company "The Archers". The film, which stars Dirk Bogarde and features Marius Goring, David Oxley, and Cyril Cusack, is based on the 1950 book Ill Met by Moonlight: The Abduction of General Kreipe by W. Stanley Moss, which is an account of events during the author's service on Crete during World War II as an agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The title is a quotation from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the book features the young agents' capture and evacuation of the German general Heinrich Kreipe.
Basil Dearden was an English film director.
The Greengage Summer is a 1961 British drama film directed by Lewis Gilbert and starring Kenneth More and Susannah York. It was based on the novel The Greengage Summer (1958) by Rumer Godden. Set in Épernay, in the Champagne region of France, it is the story of the transition of a teenage girl into womanhood.
Cast a Dark Shadow is a 1955 British suspense film noir directed by Lewis Gilbert and written by John Cresswell, based on the 1952 play Murder Mistaken by Janet Green. It stars Dirk Bogarde, Margaret Lockwood, Kay Walsh, Kathleen Harrison and Robert Flemyng. The film released on 20 September 1955, distributed by Eros Films Ltd. in the United Kingdom and Distributors Corporation of America in the United States. The story concerns a husband who murders his wife.
A Tale of Two Cities is a 1958 British film directed by Ralph Thomas and starring Dirk Bogarde and Dorothy Tutin. It is a period drama based on parts of Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities (1859).
Libel is a 1959 British drama film directed by Anthony Asquith and starring Olivia de Havilland, Dirk Bogarde, Paul Massie, Wilfrid Hyde-White and Robert Morley. The screenplay was by Anatole de Grunwald and Karl Tunberg from a 1935 play of the same name by Edward Wooll.
Sebastian is a 1968 British spy film directed by David Greene, produced by Michael Powell, Herbert Brodkin and Gerry Fisher, and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film is based on a story by Leo Marks, and Gerald Vaughan-Hughes wrote the screenplay.
King and Country is a 1964 British war film directed by Joseph Losey, shot in black and white, and starring Dirk Bogarde and Tom Courtenay. The film was adapted for the screen by British screenwriter Evan Jones based on the play Hamp by John Wilson and a 1955 novel by James Lansdale Hodson.
Doctor in Distress is a 1963 British comedy film directed by Ralph Thomas and starring Dirk Bogarde, James Robertson Justice, and Samantha Eggar. It is the fifth of the seven films in the Doctor series. After a one-film absence, it was the final return to the role of Simon Sparrow by Dirk Bogarde, and also the return of Donald Houston. The film uses some of the characters in Richard Gordon's Doctor novels, but is not based on any of them.
The Ringer is a 1952 British mystery film directed by Guy Hamilton and starring Herbert Lom, Donald Wolfit, Mai Zetterling, Greta Gynt, William Hartnell, and Denholm Elliott. It was Hamilton's directorial debut and the third English-language sound version of Edgar Wallace's 1929 play, which in of itself was based on his 1925 novel The Gaunt Stranger. The previous adaptations had come in 1928 (silent), 1931, 1932 (Germany-Austria), and 1938.
They Who Dare is a 1954 British Second World War war film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Dirk Bogarde, Denholm Elliott and Akim Tamiroff. It was released by British Lion Films and in the United States by Allied Artists. The story is based on Operation Anglo that took place during World War II in the Dodecanese islands where special forces attempted to disrupt the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica from threatening Allied forces in Egypt. The title of the film is a reference to the motto of the Special Air Service: "Who Dares Wins".
The Mind Benders is a 1963 British thriller film produced by Michael Relph, directed by Basil Dearden and starring Dirk Bogarde, Mary Ure, John Clements, Michael Bryant and Wendy Craig. Screenwriter James Kennaway turned his screenplay into his 1963 novel of the same name.
Portrait from Life is a 1948 British drama film directed by Terence Fisher and starring Mai Zetterling, Robert Beatty and Guy Rolfe.
The High Bright Sun is a 1964 British action film directed by Ralph Thomas and starring Dirk Bogarde, George Chakiris and Susan Strasberg. It is set in Cyprus during the EOKA uprising against British rule in the 1950s. It was based on a 1962 novel by Ian Stuart Black.
The Girls is a 1968 Swedish drama film directed by Mai Zetterling, starring Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson and Gunnel Lindblom. It is a feminist reinvention of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, and revolves around a theatre group which sets up the play.
Desperate Moment is a 1951 thriller novel by the German writer Martha Albrand, then living in the United States. It takes place in postwar Europe where a man breaks out of prison to try and find the men who set him up.