An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. How wonderful we were back in the early sixties of the last century when the actor John Gregson mentions casually that a man will be hung, and a large ' Gollywog ' is kicked across the floor by a child in peril. Gregson goes on interminably about the law and seems to have no clue that such legal acts of hanging makes us all murderers. As for the kicked ' Gollywog ' why not give all children one and kick it all you like ? I hope we never go back to those days but I fear this kind of film will bring out the worst in people which sadly still remains in the UK. I suggest Diana Dors in the death cell should be showed more often and then people can reflect more on what it means to ' Yield to the Night '. To say I dislike this kind of film is an understatement because they breed sentiments that the hanging is ' just ' and that Gollywog toys are perhaps normal. The boy in peril kicks and hugs it in equal pleasure.
I give it a 2 for Robert Shaw and a performance that puts to shame the rest. It also has a lurid if brief club scene where young girls contort their bodies sexily and this too was cliché ridden but typical of that weird atmosphere of that transitional decade of the Sixties where such things could happen and the camera distorts and makes it all look lascivious and ' sinful '. But as I see from the reviews this is a good film. In its painting by numbers way it possibly is, so my above question remains. A final observation, the Gollywog gets a shampoo and a bath !!!!
Review of Tomorrow at Ten
