Desperate Moment

1953 film by Compton Bennett

17 March 1953 (1953-03-17) (London, UK)

Running time

88 minutesCountryUnited KingdomLanguageEnglish

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 Germany including scenes shot at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. The film's sets were designed by the art director Maurice Carter.

Plot

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...

Cast

Dirk Bogarde as Simon Van Halder
Mai Zetterling as Anna DeBurg
Philip Friend as Captain Bob Sawyer
Albert Lieven as Paul Ravitch
Fritz Wendhausen as Warder Goeter
Carl Jaffe as Becker
Gerard Heinz as German Prison Doctor
André Mikhelson as Polizei Inspector
Harold Ayer as Captain Trevor Wood
Walter Gotell as Ravitch's Servant-Henchman
Friedrich Joloff as Valentin Vladek
Simone Silva as Mink, Valentin's girl
Ferdy Mayne as Detective Laurence
Walter Rilla as Colonel Bertrand, Dutch consulate
Antonio Gallardo as Spanish Dancer
Paul Hardtmuth as Wharf Watchman
Theodore Bikel as Anton Meyer

Critical reception

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]