Steal Hearts, Steel Bonds/ This is Pittsburgh

Victim (1961, Basil Dearden)

This is the second of Dearden’s film from the Eclipse series “London Underground” that I’ve seen, and much like the last one, it has terrible issues with the pacing of the narrative.  What’s more, the prominently-figuring red-herring was a hell of a lot more interesting than the ultimate identity of the black-mailer. 

I will say, though, that it’s certainly a rather important film, here we have the word “homosexual” spoken on-screen for the first time in the history of English-language cinema.  And there’s bits of delightfully caddy dialogue:

You took a wife like an alcoholic takes a cure!