like a rat in a trap of his own creation

Author: bill engleson from British Columbia
25 February 2004

Every where Richard Widmark's loser character Harry Fabian turns in this film he finds golden opportunities smothered in bad timing. Widmark utilizes a variation of that smarmy, snickering sinister giggle-chuckle that was memorialized in Kiss of Death.It serves the actor well in this film in its toned-down form but offers up a sort of pathetic body language for Fabian, the character. It may be that this American ex-patriot character is just way out of his depth.

His hucksterism is not much appreciated by many of his acquaintances in this seedy London underworld. If Harry Fabian would simply accept that he is destined to be a 3rd rate shill and stooge,he might have fund some small pleasures. However, his mind is a shade too quick and his ambition too pumped. He's a user with not a shread of remorse about stepping on others, ripping them off, keeping one tiny step ahead of exposure. This is a superb film, squalid and sinister in its portrayal of greed, corruption and betrayal.