Pit of Darkness DVD, 1961

£11.99

RRP: £12.99
You save £1 (7%)

Availability
In Stock - should be despatched within 24 hours. Despatched from the UK. Delivery timesUsually 2-3 days to reach UK addresses. Europe takes around 2 days longer and International destinations take 1-2 weeks

Delivery
Free to UK customers!
Costs to other countriesWestern Europe: £2.00
Rest of the world: £3.00

Returns Policy
If you are unhappy with your purchase, you can return it to us within 14 days. More details

MovieMail's Review

A certain level of economy and expertise (rather than inspiration) was a sine qua non of British crime film from the 1940s to the 1960s, as may be discerned in Lance Comfort's Pit of Darkness (1961) and - to a far lesser degree - in Norman Lee's The Case of Charles Peace (1949). Although neither film ever really rises above the quotidian, there are certain retrospective pleasure to be had in the sheer professionalism involved in turning out this kind of product (though the Lee film is generally stultifying and workaday, conforming to all the low expectations that are now the cinéaste's default verdict on most British 'B' films of this ilk -- making the discovery of movies demonstrating energy and imagination all the more cherishable). The former (and later) film, Pit of Darkness, is the livelier piece of work, with the reliable off-the-peg British actor William Franklyn as the amnesiac partner in a safe-making firm who is discovered unconscious on a Wapping bombsite (the film is a snapshot of the area, pre-expensive flats and gated hi-tech newspaper offices) with no recollection of his recent past. He finds out that his wife has hired a detective, and that this man has been murdered. What's more, his own company has installed a safe in a large country house which has been scientifically burgled - and he is a logical suspect. What follows involves the working out of a complex (and unlikely) plot, handled with the kind of film making nous that was Lance Comfort's stock-in-trade.

Barry Forshaw on 26th October 2011
View all 513 of Barry Forshaw's reviews

Film Information

Director - Lance Comfort

Produced - 1961

Main Language - English

Countries & Regions - British Film

Cast - Nigel Green, Nanette Newman, Anthony Booth, William Franklyn, Moira Redmond, Leonard Sachs

DVD Details

Certificate:	PG	Publisher:	Renown Pictures	Region:	2
Length:	76 mins	Cat No:	194731
Format:	DVD B&W

DVD Extras

15 page booklet celebrating the history of Butchers Films.

Film Description

A British crime thriller, Pit of Darkness finds a man fighting to clear his name. Richard Logan (William Franklyn), a partner at a safe designing company, is tricked into opening a safe by robbers who are intent on taking its jewels. Then he wakes up on an abandoned bomb site with no memory of the last three weeks - but when he discovers he was part of the plot to steal the jewels, he and his wife, Julie (Moira Redmond), attempt to find out exactly happened in order to prove his innocence.