Nowhere to Go (1958 film)

Nowhere to Go is a 1958 British crime film directed by Seth Holt, his directorial debut. It stars George Nader, Maggie Smith (receiving her first screen credit), Bernard Lee, Harry H. Corbett, and Bessie Love. After a criminal escapes from jail, his attempts to recover his stashed loot end in failure, as he is shunned by the criminal community and hunted down by the police.

Nowhere to Go
Theatrical release poster
Directed bySeth Holt
Produced byMichael Balcon
Eric Williams
Written byKenneth Tynan
Seth Holt
Based onNowhere to Go: A Novel
by Donald MacKenzie[1]
StarringGeorge Nader
Maggie Smith
Bernard Lee
Geoffrey Keen
Music byDizzy Reece
CinematographyPaul Beeson
Edited byHarry Aldous
Production
company
Distributed byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
  • 2 December 1958 (1958-12-02)
Running time
89 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget$468,000[2]
Box office$460,000[2]

Originally edited down as part of a double bill, the full-length version of Nowhere to Go was released on DVD in January 2013.

Holt called it "the least Ealing film ever made".[3]

Plot

Paul Gregory (Nader), a Canadian confidence trickster operating in London, targets a wealthy Canadian woman in Britain to sell her collection of valuable coins. After meeting her at an ice hockey match, he sets about winning her confidence until she is prepared to give him legal control over the sale. He completes the deal without her knowledge, puts the money from the sale in a safe deposit box, and then deliberately waits to be caught by the police. Gregory plans on getting a five-year sentence, with time off for good behaviour, and then collecting his loot when he is released.

However, the judge makes an example of the uncooperative Gregory by handing down a ten-year term. Not wishing to spend so much time in jail, Gregory pays Victor Sloane (Bernard Lee), one of his associates on the outside, to help him escape. Almost immediately, things begin to go wrong. Fearing arrest, he is unable for the moment to recover the money from the safe. Sloane also now begins to demand more money, threatening him with violence, and Gregory is forced to retaliate.

Gregory tries to get help from his fellow criminals, calling upon an established code that exists between them. But when his former associate Sloane is found dead – accidentally having choked to death on the gag Gregory placed in his mouth – they refuse to offer him any assistance, as he is now too "hot".

With the manhunt rapidly closing in, he tries to escape with the help of Bridget Howard (Maggie Smith), a disillusioned ex-débutante and niece of a Chief Constable. She drives Gregory to a deserted cottage near her family's home in rural Wales. While in hiding, he witnesses the police arrive to question Bridget, assumes the worst, and flees again. Attempting to steal a farmer's bicycle, he is shot in the shoulder. He drives away in a stolen truck but crashes and passes out, where he is found by another farmer. Bridget tells the police nothing. She waits in vain for Gregory at the cottage, then walks into the distance.

Cast

Production

The film was based on the debut novel by Donald MacKenzie, a former prisoner, which was published in 1956. The Manchester Guardian said "the reader is swept along until the very last page."[4] It was published in the US as Manhunt. The New York Times described it as "highly rewarding".[5]

It was made at MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood, but put out under the Ealing Studios banner. Ealing had moved there following the sale of its own studio base in 1955.

In December 1956 Ealing listed Nowhere to Go as part of a slate of movies it planned to make the following year in conjunction with MGM; others included Davy and Dunkirk. Harry Watt was to direct Nowhere to Go.[6]

Watt ended up being assigned to The Siege of Pinchgut (1959), which was to be the last Ealing film. The director of Nowhere to Go would be Seth Holt, a long-term film editor at Ealing, and he was the last major beneficiary of studio head Michael Balcon's policy of promoting from within.[7]

The script was co written by Kenneth Tynan, who worked at Ealing for two years. This was the only script of his to be filmed while there.[3] He wrote the script with Seth Holt who said "I did the action bits and he did the dialogue."[8] Holt says when writing "I was determined that if we had a criminal as a central figure then we would not have this element of self pity that was so prevalent in those days."[9]

George Nader made the film just after his long term contract with Universal ended. He flew into London on 3 December 1957.[10]

Maggie Smith was a rising stage star. She was one of eleven artists under contract to Ealing.[11]

Holt said "I was very anxious to make something rather stylish" with the movie.[12] He said Michael Balcon was very supportive although "in the end he ratted on me slightly by agreeing with MGM to cut out a quarter of an hour of the film. It might not have been a mistake, I don’t know. They were good sequences that went. One was with Lily Kahn; one was with a girl that plays his wife in a flashback to her visit to prison. They were good acting sequences. The visit to prison is a very good scene, utterly flat and miserable. On the other hand I must confess you don’t have to have it."[13]

Release

Nowhere to Go was the first Ealing film under the MGM arrangement not to get a standalone release. Instead, MGM cut it to 89 minutes and put it out in the UK on the bottom half of a double bill with the World War II submarine drama Torpedo Run. The pairing premiered in the West End on 4 December 1958, curiously at Fox's Rialto Theatre rather than one of MGM's two West End outlets. UK general release began on the ABC circuit from 11 January 1959.[14]

Reception

Critical

Sight and Sound said the film "looked decidedly promising. In fact it is a failure, though neither negligible nor unintelligent; and the reasons for failure are themselves revealing... it never quite makes up its mind about its central character, presenting him at one moment as an enemy of society, then sentimentalising over him as a fugitive and victim; and it provides scarcely a shred of plausible motivation for the girl... a picture which often lets its story slide while it fills in background detail."[15]

David Thomson later called it "a cool, supremely visual thriller that in terms of its minimal dialogue and daring narrative playfulness is closer to the world of Jean-Pierre Melville than to any British precedents."[16]

Box Office

According to MGM records, the film earned $145,000 in the US and Canada and $450,000 elsewhere, resulting in a loss of $242,000.[2]

Holt said after the film came out "I was out on my ear and didn’t get any work at all for a long time... Nowhere to Go dropped like a stone. I like to think, if it had been about two years later, people would have noticed it. "[17] He went back to editing for a number of years until an executive at Hammer Films who had liked Nowhere to Go hired him for Taste of Fear.

References
  1. MacKenzie, Donald (1956). Nowhere to Go: A Novel. London: Elek Books. OCLC 562102160.
  2. The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
  3. Film & Music: Brief encounters: Kenneth Tynan on film: Tynan's Ealing escapade Billington, Michael. The Guardian; London (UK) [London (UK)]21 May 2010: 4.
  4. FRENCH, ENGLISH, AND AMERICAN Lies, Francis. The Manchester Guardian 7 Dec 1956: 8.
  5. Criminals At Large: Criminals By ANTHONY BOUCHER. New York Times 3 Mar 1957: 247.
  6. ON THE ENGLISH PRODUCTION SCENE: By STEPHEN WATTS. New York Times 30 Dec 1956: X5.
  7. Seth Holt French, Philip. The Observer 21 Feb 1971: 21.
  8. Gough-Yates p 7
  9. Gough-Yates p 7
  10. Nader to Do Films in London and Italy Hopper, Hedda. Los Angeles Times 30 Nov 1957: B2.
  11. MISS SMITH TAKES THE STAGE Richards, Dick. The Sketch; London Vol. 228, Iss. 2952, (Jan 15, 1958): 68.
  12. Gough-Yates p 9
  13. Gough-Yate p 9-10
  14. Eyles, Allen (1993). ABC: The First Name in Entertainment. London: CTA-BFI Publishing. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-85170-430-2.
  15. Review of film at Sight and Sound
  16. Desert heat Thompson, David. Sight and Sound; London Vol. 21, Iss. 9, (Sep 2011): 10.
  17. Gough-Yates p 10

Further reading
  • Perry, George (1981). Forever Ealing: A Celebration of the Great British Film Studio. Pavilion.
  • Gough-Yates, Kevin (November–December 1969). "Interview with Seth Holt". Screen. Vol. 10 no. 6.
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