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Tread Softly Stranger
UK release poster
Directed byGordon Parry
Written byGeorge Minter
Based onplay Blind Alley by Jack Popplewell
Produced byDenis O'Dell
StarringDiana Dors
George Baker
Terence Morgan
CinematographyDouglas Slocombe
Edited byAnthony Harvey
Music byTristram Cary
Production
companies
Alderdale
George Minter Productions
Distributed byRenown Pictures
Release date
  • August 1958 (1958-08)
Running time
87 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Tread Softly Stranger is a 1958 British crime drama film directed by Gordon Parry and starring Diana Dors, George Baker and Terence Morgan. The screenplay was written by George Minter adapted from the stage play Blind Alley (1953) by Jack Popplewell.[1][2] The film was shot in black-and-white in film noir style, and its setting in a fictional industrial town in northern England mirrors the kitchen sink realism movement coming into vogue in English drama and film at the time.

Plot

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Johnny Mansell has fled to the Yorkshire steel town of Rawborough, once his home town, after racking up large gambling debts in London. He moves into a cramped boarding house where his brother Dave, a clerk in a local steel mill, was already living; Dave has a girlfriend Calico, a hostess in a local nightclub, who lives close by and their flats have neighbouring flat roof spaces, which the three often use. Johnny discovers that Dave has been stealing money from the mill where he works, spending the money on Calico. While Johnny works on a scheme to get enough money to cover up Dave’s fraud and pay off his own debts with a win on the racetrack, Calico comes up with her own plan for the brothers to steal the payroll at Dave's workplace and pay off their debts with the proceeds. Although Johnny wins the money at the track, he is robbed by gangsters from London who recognise him there and instead, the brothers try to carry out Calico’s plan to steal the payroll but they mistakenly kill a night watchman, the father of their best friend in the town, with a gun that Calico lent Dave.

Cast

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Blind Alley

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Blind Alley
Written byJack Popplewell
Directed byHulbert Gregg
Date premieredJanuary 20, 1953 (1953-01-20)
Place premieredQ Theatre, London
Original languageEnglish
Genrecrime

The movie was based on a 1953 play by Jack Popplewell called Blind Alley. It was Popplewell's first play; when he wrote it he was better known as a songwriter and the success of the play launched him as a playwright.[3] The original production starred John Gregson and was directed by Hulbert Gregg. The Daily Telegraph called it "an original and accomplished thriller."[4]

The play received numerous productions over the following years. George Minter, who wrote and produced the film, called the original play a "money maker".[5] Jackie Collins appeared in a 1958 production in Manchester.[6]

The play was adapted for Australian radio in 1961.[7]

Production

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In May 1957 it was announced the play would be turned into a film called Tread Softly Stranger by Renown Studios.[8]

George Minter said he worked on the script for two years. Producer Denis O'Dell said "I don’t claim to be a creative writer or a wizard at writing marvellous dialogue, but I do claim to know what makes a script tick. And that is important, because you have nothing if your screenplay is badly constructed."[9]

The film was shot at Walton Studios in Walton-on-Thames[10] and on location in Parkgate, Rotherham. Gordon Parry said "This is the kind of off-beat, realistic subject that a director is always looking for."[9]

The eponymous theme tune was sung by Jim Dale.

Box office

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Kinematograph Weekly listed it as being "in the money" at the British box office in 1958[11] and had "scored" commercially.[12]

Critical reception

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In British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 David Quinlan wrote: ''Thriller has silly dialogue, fails to make use of Rotherham backgrounds.''[13]

Leslie Halliwell wrote: "Hilarious murky melodrama full of glum faces, with a well-worn trick ending; rather well photographed."[14]

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 1/5 stars, writing: "The big question here is, what on earth were Diana Dors, Terence Morgan and George Baker doing in such a dreary little film? Director Gordon Parry was capable of making involving pictures, but here he insists on his cast delivering each line as if it had the dramatic weight of a Russian novel, which is more than a little preposterous for a petty melodrama about criminal brothers falling for the same girl."[15]

Release

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Tread Softly Stranger received its first DVD release in the UK in 2008.

References

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  1. ^ "Tread Softly Stranger". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
  2. ^ "TREAD SOFTLY, STRANGER". Monthly Film Bulletin. Vol. 25, no. 288. London. 1 January 1958. p. 92.
  3. ^ "Jack Popplewell". The Times. 5 December 1996. p. 23.
  4. ^ "Good thriller by new author". The Daily Telegraph. 21 January 1953. p. 8.
  5. ^ Minster, George (19 June 1958). "Better films are here just the right tiem". Kinematograph Weekly.
  6. ^ "Blind Alley". The Guardian. 23 September 1958. p. 5.
  7. ^ "Radio plays". The Age. 12 October 1961. p. 24.
  8. ^ "Comedy and drama in Renown pline up". Kinematograph Weekly. 2 May 1957. p. 12.
  9. ^ a b "Peter Evans' Studio Round Up". Kinematograph Weekly. 16 January 1958. p. 24.
  10. ^ Nepean, Edith (12 April 1958). "Round the British Studios". Picture Show. Vol. 70, no. 1828. London. p. 11.
  11. ^ Billings, Josh (18 December 1958). "Others in the Money". Kinematograph Weekly. p. 7.
  12. ^ Billings, Josh (18 December 1958). "Anglo provides smash hit of the year". Kinematograph Weekly. p. 7.
  13. ^ Quinlan, David (1984). British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd. p. 392. ISBN 0-7134-1874-5.
  14. ^ Halliwell, Leslie (1989). Halliwell's Film Guide (7th ed.). London: Paladin. p. 1048. ISBN 0-586-08894-6.
  15. ^ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 957. ISBN 9780992936440.
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