The Child and the Killer
British quad poster
Directed byMax Varnel
Written by
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyJames Wilson (as Jimmy Wilson)
Edited byMaurice Rootes
Music byAlbert Elms
Production
company
Distributed byUnited Artists Corporation (UK)
Release date
  • February 1959 (1959-02) (UK)
Running time
65 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

The Child and the Killer (also known as The Man in the Shadows[1]) is a 1959 British low budget second feature[2] crime film directed by Max Varnel and starring Patricia Driscoll and Robert Arden.[3]

Plot

Joe, a US army officer, is on the run after committing murder. He invades the home of the widowed Peggy, and orders her son Tommy at gunpoint to guide him through the backwaters of the English countryside to safety. But he reckons without U.S. army Captain Mather, who is in love with Tommy's mother.

Cast

  • Patricia Driscoll as Peggy
  • Robert Arden as Joe
  • Richard Williams as Tommy
  • Ryck Rydon as Mather
  • John McLaren as Major Finch
  • Robert Raglan as Inspector
  • Gary Thorne as prior
  • Gordon Sterne as Sergeant
  • Frank Ellement as White

Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Although this highly concentrated, small budget thriller is weak in dialogue and over-generous in dramatic licence, it is convincingly enough acted, particularly by Richard Williams as the boy. When the search gets under way and dialogue is at a minimum, Max Varnel's direction becomes more forceful and the tension of the last scenes is quite effectively held."[4]

TV Guide called it a "routine crime melodrama".[5]

AllMovie thought the film had "elements in common with the much-later Kevin Costner vehicle A Perfect World [1993]".[6]

References

  1. ↑ "The Child and the Killer". FilmAffinity.
  2. ↑ Chibnall, Steve; McFarlane, Brian (2009). The British 'B' Film. London: BFI/Bloomsbury. p. 401. ISBN 978-1-8445-7319-6.
  3. ↑ "The Child and the Killer". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  4. ↑ "The Child and the Killer". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 26 (300): 45. 1 January 1959 – via ProQuest.
  5. ↑ "The Child And The Killer". TVGuide.com.
  6. ↑ Hal Erickson. "The Child and the Killer (1959) - Max Varnel - Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related - AllMovie". AllMovie.


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