Eight O'Clock Walk (1954)

i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

A North London cab driver, Tom Manning (Richard Attenborough), agrees to help a little girl find her doll on a bombsite, but it turns out she is playing an April Fools on him and she runs away. He chases after her with the intention of "giving her a talking to" but she outruns him and he goes off to work thinking nothing more of it. However, the following day he is arrested as the child has been found murdered on the bombsite and there are witnesses who saw him with her and chasing angrily after her. In addition, the police have found his handkerchief that he gave to the child beside the body. Tom's loyal and devoted wife, Jill (Cathy O' Donnell), wins the sympathy and services of Junior Counsel Peter Tanner (Derek Farr) who agrees to defend her husband when the attorney scheduled to do it falls ill. He proves to be a first rate lawyer, but the prosecution's case seems rock solid and he will need a real lucky break to save him from the gallows...Minor courtroom thriller with a plot that may well have been cutting edge at the time, but now seems unremarkable since it has been done several times and a lot better since. Nevertheless, director Lance Comfort keeps it well afloat with a good emphasis on character and, at times, the anxiety, anguish and tension seem really genuine and the performances of Attenborough and O' Donnell are superb as the newly married couple whose lives are put through sheer hell as they fight to clear his name. There is a really powerful scene where Attenborough sees the prison doctor who points to a flying accident he once had and implies that he may have had a blackout and committed the crime but had no recollection of doing so. "They try to make excuses for you; try to find reasonings for things you never thought of at the time and you begin to wonder if you really did do it", he tells O' Donnell as she visits him in jail. His thoughts and feelings seem realistic to us, the viewers, and we can sympathise with his plight since it seems that the police in the film do not really care if Manning is innocent or not and are solely interested in getting a conviction and that's it even if it means the real killer may remain at large and the wrong man goes to the gallows for it. The film does, however, get static in the courtroom scenes and they carry very little in the way of suspense. In addition, I was disappointed in the battle between the prosecution Counsel, Ian Hunter, and the defence attorney, Derek Farr, since in the story they are playing father and son and are opposing each other at the bar and that was not as well developed nor as effective as I thought it should be.

Watching this film from the 1954, was an unexpected enjoyable movie,Richard Attenborough is very good in this film, while not a film to mark out on his long film career, it certain should not be forgotten. Cathy O'Donnell has an accent which is not Canadian.The Film is like a moment of the 1950's caught on film. The film deals with whole criminal investigation of the UK criminal justice system from the discovery of victim to investigation, collecting witness statements, including forensic investigation, jury selection, arrangement, and the actual trial, the film has a good story line than most crime dramas on TV's.

Didn't seem to have anything to do with an eight o'clock walk, more like 8.50 - the time the children were out in the street playing April Fool's jokes on everyone. Little Irene Manning is no exception, waylaying local cabbie Tom Manning (Richard Attenborough, goes without saying he turns in his usual solid performance) and, tearfully telling him her dolly is lost, she leads him onto an abandoned bomb site. When she is later found dead suspicion quickly mounts against Tom as witnesses testify that he was seen shaking his fist at the little girl - but it was all in fun!!!This is a typical wrong man in the wrong place with an innocent person being caught up in damning circumstantial evidence type of film that the British do so well. American Cathy O'Donnell who had never struck me as a particularly exciting actress, really rang true with her low key demeanour as Jill, who never for one moment doubted her husband's innocence. Once the legal eagles come into it, she finds no one really cares about seeing that Tom gets a fair trial - all except junior partner Tanner (Derek Farr), who when he hears Jill's impassioned plea decides to really delve into the matter and comes to the conclusion that Tom is completely innocent.Hovering in the background is the real killer, the shadowy man in the bowler hat, so obviously a local.I was so looking forward to seeing this film again as I hadn't seen it for over 20 years (and like another reviewer am very surprised that there are only a couple of reviews) and while it was not as thrilling as I remembered it, is a dependable and solid story. Nice to see an older and even more stiff upper lip (if that's possible) Ian Hunter as Tanner Snr. ,who is the prosecuting lawyer, also nice "slices of life" of the jury members and various women witnesses trying to keep their kids in line while waiting for their turn on the bench.

At the time that this film was made there was a fierce debate about capital punishment.In the early fifties Timothy Evans was wrongly hung for murders committed by Christie.Then Derek Bentley was hung for a murder he did not commit,merely present when the actual murderer fired the weapon.The actual murderer went to jail as he was too young to hang.So this film sets up a perfect set of circumstances where an innocent man could be convicted of murder.It is only because of the theatrical contrivances that in fact Attenborough goes free.The trial in the film is fairly brief in that it appears to last a couple of days.frighteningly that is the way it was.At times it was all about "pour encourage les autres" rather than justice being seen to be done.A thoughtful film with sincere performances.