Tread, Don't Walk

Not being certain what I wanted to watch off my DVR but needing a movie to blog about today, as opposed to the next few days when I'm going to be blogging about stuff that's coming up on one or another of the movie channels, I decided to go back to one of my DVD box sets of British public-domain movies, and watch Tread Softly Stranger.

The movie (or at least this print) starts off with a pre-credits scene. Johnny Mansell (George Baker) is living in London, but unfortunately he's living by playing the horses. He's run up some gambling debts to the bookies, and they'd like their money back, thank you very much. So he walks out on his current girlfriend and heads up north to his old home town of Rowborough to escape.

Rowborough is one of those industrial towns in the North that populated British movies of the late 50s and 1960s, when British cultural norms were changning. The blue-collar types live in depressing row houses as we'd say in the US (I think the British term is terraced housing), or renting out individual rooms of accommodation. Johnny finds his brother Dave (Terence Morgan), who works as a bookkeeper at the local factory, and gets a room next to Dave's in the same building, one that has rear access to a "garden" which other buildings also have access to. When Johnny goes out to the "garden" one day, he finds a young woman exercising. This is Calico (Diana Dors), who works at the local night spot, a dive bar catering to the blue-collar workers. There's obviously some sparks immediately between Johnny and Calico, because what man wouldn't be interested in Calico?

Of course, that means not only Johnny is interested in Calico; Dave is, too. And Dave has been showering Calico with the sort of gifts that there's no way somebody on a bookkeeper's salary could afford. And indeed, he's just as much in debt as Johnny is. Well, technically he's not in debt, as he's embezzled the money from the company, which there's no possibly way he could ever pay back. Worse, the auditors are coming in a couple of weeks, so Dave has a deadline for getting the money back lest he be noticed.

Johnny has learned of a horse that's a sure thing, and he could get the money, if only he has enough of a stake to begin with. The one way to do that is to pawn off the watch that Dave bought Calico, and use that as a wager, not that Calico is happy with it. But she agrees. And the horse does win, giving Johnny the money to pay back to the company. Unfortunately, he's spotted at the race track, some ways away from Rowborough, by a couple of the bookies from London whom he owes money, and they waylay him.

Johnny doesn't return home when he was scheduled to, having been waylaid, so Calico puts it into Dave's head that perhaps he should hold up the payroll. With a lack of cash to pay the payroll, nobody's going to look for an extra £300 that Dave had embezzled. Dave isn't particularly bright, and isn't thinking with his right head anyway, so he heads off to the factory. Johnny returns home with his winnings and, finding out what Dave is doing, rushes off to the factory to try to stop Dave.

Unfortunately, Johnny and Dave get caught by the security guard, resulting in Dave shooting him. But like "The Telltale Heart", Dave starts getting the distinct feeling that somebody witnessed him at the factory, and that that witness is stalking him....

Tread Softly Stranger is the sort of second-tier British movie that's a really good exemplar of British cinema at the time. It's not the greatest movie by any stretch, but it's very competently made, with good, believable performances and a nice atmosphere. Movies like this don't get so much attention in the US since Hollywood would be promoting its own stuff. That's a shame, because Tread Softly Stranger is eminently watchable.