They Made Me a Fugitive (1948)

one of my absolute favorites!

Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

In the post-war in London, the unemployed and former RAF pilot Clem Morgan (Trevor Howard) is invited by his acquaintance Narcissus "Narcy" (Griffith Jones) to join his gang of smugglers and smalltime thieves that uses a funeral home as headquarter. When Clem sees drugs in a coffin, he decides to leave the gang after his last job looting a warehouse. However Narcy betrays him and activates an alarm, but Clem escapes from the warehouse and gets in Narcy´s car. When the gangster Soapy (Jack McNaughton) is driving the getaway car, Narcy orders him to hit and run a policeman on the street. The car crashes a post and Narcy also hits Clem´s head and flees with Soapy, leaving Clem unconscious in the car. Clem is arrested and convicted for manslaughter and sent to a prison in Dartmoor. When Clem receives the visit of Narcy´s girlfriend Sally Connor (Sally Gray) and learns that his girlfriend Ellie is with Narcy, he decides to escape from prison. Now he is a fugitive and seeks out Soapy to clear his name and Narcy to revenge is betrayal."They Made Me a Fugitive" is a good British film-noir with themes that might have impacted the audiences in 1947. There is reference to drug; torture of woman; and wife executing the alcoholic husband. The cast is excellent and the performances are top-notch. The beauty of Sally Gray is ahead of the time. The plot is well-resolved but the woman that kills her husband is forgotten. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Nas Garras da Fatalidade" ("In the Claws of the Fatality")

A good deal of British film noir style suspense is generated in I BECAME A CRIMINAL (U.S.A. title: THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE) starring TREVOR HOWARD as an ex-RAF pilot who becomes a bored civilian and falls in with a racketeering gang shortly after the end of WWII.GRIFFITH JONES is the sinister, rough and tough leader of the gang who decides to set Howard up for the murder of a policeman during an escape from the cops. Howard spends some time in prison before breaking out and going all out for revenge by returning to London for a confrontation with Jones' gang.While the story itself is nothing original, it's done with such style and flair for this kind of grim material, the B&W photography giving realistic glimpses of post-war London on the gritty side.SALLY GRAY is very effective as the woman who helps Howard and believes in his innocence. The supporting players register strongly as individual characters.The final shoot-out is a bit too frenzied for my taste, extending for quite awhile before the villains are disposed of. Despite this, the ending remains downbeat with just a glimmer of hope that some day Gray will be able to prove her man has been railroaded and is innocent of the murder charge for killing a policeman.Well worth viewing if you like suspenseful, brisk stories of this genre with dialog that is strong and forceful. While this bears no relation to the John Garfield film, THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL, its plot outline does bear a strong resemblance to the Burt Lancaster thriller, KISS THE BLOOD OFF MY HANDS with Joan Fontaine helping Lancaster elude the pursuing authorities while on the run.

A British noir as good as the definitive ones being turned out in the States by such consensus masters as Mann, Dassin, and Lewis, to name three. And what about that great ending that still leaves me flabbergasted. Three cheers for a British cinema that apparently was able to operate without the albatross of a Production Code and still not wreck the nation's moral fiber. Needless to say, those final few minutes would never have been allowed Stateside where the scales of justice always triumphed, no matter how the world really works. Then too, consider the household Howard stumbles into by accident, where the zoned out housewife is only too eager to perforate her boozy hubby. One look at that demented visage and she's a lot scarier than any of the professionals. No wonder Howard flees back to the safety of London's underworld. This may also be the cheapest electricity bill on record since the brightest sound-stage bulb checks in at about 60 watts—they don't call it "noir" for nothing. And keep an ear cocked for some of the snappiest dialogue this side of Dashiel Hammett, especially from that old crone Aggie, who, I shudder to think, might actually be somebody's grandmother.Not that everything is roses. Some of the set-ups operate only at a stretch. For example, Howard's aim with a milk bottle should have him pitching for the Yankees. And he does it with such casual flair, you'd never guess his life is on the line. Nonetheless, the movie's a real sleeper and should have been exported to our shores a lot sooner. I expect, that daring finale would have inspired our own filmmakers to greater sneaky lengths in subverting the dead hand of Hollywood censorship.

A year after his hit,"Brief Encounter," Trevor Howard turned to a British gangster film of the film noir genre.Falling in with a band of crooks, Howard wants out when he sees what they're really up to. The leader of the gang, Griffith Jones, has him framed for running over a police officer and the Howard character is sentenced to 15 years for manslaughter.The rest of the film deals with Howard breaking out of prison, after he is told that his girlfriend is now going with Griffith. Of course, Griffith's ex tells him all this.Griffith Jones's death scene is quite similar to that of Stephen Boyd in "Ben-Hur." The only difference is that the ending is not exactly what you want.Nevertheless, this is a taut thriller, one of the best of the film-noir genre.Sally Gray is Griffith's ex who comes to love Howard.