Recoil

The 'other' Ian Fleming plays the lovely Elisabeth Sellars' father and Edward Underdown and Keiron Moore are rather unlikely siblings in this talky but well-acted and languidly ruthless little crime drama with the usual atmospheric photography by co-producer Monty Berman and some surprisingly violent action.

John Gilling wrote and directed this film noir in 1953, 10 years before the excellent "Panic". This story is more conventional, a young woman recognizes her father's killer and she seduces him until she has the opportunity to make him fall. The casting is ok but not fantastic. But there are some good action scenes, from the car chase in the beginning (but we're not yet in 1967-68 when Peter Yates directed "Robbery" and "Bullitt") to tough fights (nearly like in Phil Karlson's films noirs). Worth a look.

The interesting thing about this film is the psychology. Dr. Michael Conway is a well situated doctor who attends to his duties and takes care of his mother, but he has a brother who is of the opposite sort. After a robbery that goes wrong he is sorely beaten up and almost killed in a car accident but gets away and to his brother to bandage him up. Later he asks his brother to tell the police that they played chess together all evening, and the brother, being a conscientious doctor sticking to the obligation of silence and all that, grants his brother that alibi, without suspecting that in the failed robbery his brother accidentally killed the robbed jeweller, who was no one less than Ian Fleming. But the jeweller has a daughter, (Elizabeth Sellars), who happened to be there at the time, and accidentally she runs into the murderer of her father and will never forget his face. The major part of the messy intrigue is about her very roundabout efforts to build up evidence against him - she even deigns to let him woo her just to get closer to him to get him nailed. There are many crooks involved in this, and there are many hard blows and shootings, chases by night and rival gangs trying to gun down each other, piling up the mess, while at least Doctor Michael manages to keep out of trouble, realising far too late that he unintentionally contributed to the mess by protecting his brother. Alas, the main victim becomes their mother. It's thick thriller, well written and well played, and the direction (by John Gilling who also wrote it) is qualified enough. Elizabeth Sellars, fresh from "The Broken Horseshoe", was good at suave ambiguous roles with covert intentions, and here even her father's murderer is deceived by her, while it is impossible to grant Kieron Moore any sympathy.

Recoil is one of those British B's I love so much. This one stars Kieron Moore and Elizabeth Sellars.

A woman (Sellars) poses as a crook in order to get evidence against the jewel thief who killed her father.

Pretty good - something about Sellars reminded me of Jackie O, around the eyes.

Good acting, interesting story.

A low budget effort with silly complicated plot and storyline about postwar London crooks. Interesting shots of long vanished warehouses and vehicles.

Love interest is between curiously faced Elizabeth Sellars and prematurely aged Edward Underdown who looked old enough to be both her father and his own mother!

Silly shoot out in warehouse filmed in daylight but crook runs to car in dark!

Martic Benson looks very nice with a moustache and he dies very convincingly after the crook shoots him.

Worth watching for the historical street scenes and fashions.