User reviews

Rather hysterical but engrossing and very well-acted melodrama (particularly by Michael Redgrave, a BAFTA nominee, and Leo McKern), ostensibly a murder mystery but with a manifest position against capital punishment.

Interestingly, the culprit is known from the very beginning but, saddled with an alcoholic hero, one is never sure whether he'll be able to prove his son's innocence of murder; the denouement, then, is terrific - as unexpected as it is ironic. Losey's expressionist style (aided by Freddie Francis's chiaroscuro cinematography) is in full sway here: actually, according to film critic Gerard Legrand - writing in "The Movie" - this was the film were the director really came into his own; I can't vouch for that myself since I have yet to watch three important films he made earlier i.e. THE PROWLER (1951) and M (1951), both Hollywood productions, and THE SLEEPING TIGER (1954), Losey's first effort following his relocation to Britain.

It's undeniably a powerful film though relatively verbose (it was adapted from a play by Emlyn Williams); like I said, Losey drives his actors to fever pitch and he has chosen a most capable cast - including Ann Todd, Alec McCowen, Peter Cushing, Renee' Houston, Lois Maxwell, Joan Plowright, Peter Copley and Richard Wordsworth! The only false note throughout, perhaps, is to be found in the score by Tristram Cary - which is so over-the-top that, at times, it even drowns out the dialogue!

Exiled from the USA because of the blacklist Joseph Losey did some of his best work in the United Kingdom and he has a really good thriller here. Not much of a mystery other than the question is why couldn't the police see who it was in the first place.

Young Alec McCowen is now on death row after his girlfriend was found strangled to death in her family's home where he had been spending the weekend. Like father like son, Michael Redgrave an alcoholic writer who has been living in Canada comes back to the UK to visit with his son now on death row. He's been convicted of her death and was too drunk at the time to offer any meaningful evidence in his defense.

It was at Leo McKern's home where the deed was done. He's a foulmouthed ill tempered automobile manufacturer who terrorizes his family like wife Ann Todd and son Paul Daneman who is McCowen's best friend. He's also a bit unbalanced and everyone around him is afraid.

The real suspense is in Redgrave battling his own demons and not returning to the bottle. The pressure to do so is great, but Redgrave summons up enough strength to resist. It's a masterful very subtly cerebral type performance. He and McKern take the acting honors.

For fans of Redgrave and McKern this is a must.

Some time ago, Alec Graham was sentenced to die following the death of his girlfriend. Amazingly enough, Alec's father, David (Michael Redgrave), never learns about this until it seems too late as he's been in in-patient treatment for his alcoholism. He manages to make it to Britain the day before the boy's to be executed. Considering that David is a drunk and was never there for Alec, there's no surprise when the young man wants nothing to do with him nor his promises to help him. During the duration of the film, David reinvestigates the case. Could he possibly help? And, can David stay sober long enough to be of some use?

There is a big problem with the film...it seems pretty obvious who is the real killer and it should be to everyone. This guy is super-angry and very explosive all the time, you wonder why he wasn't considered a prime suspect or, perhaps, he knows more than he's telling. It defies common sense...which makes for a more mediocre film. Too bad...it could have easily been better...though the ending was pretty good.

Time has no pity, no sympathy, no joy and no sorrow. It's passage denotes the brevity in which the living inhabit the earth. In TIME WITHOUT PITY, a young man is dong time in prison for a murder he did not commit. A correctional institution is about to put a stop to that young man's time at the behest of the State. A father caught between the daunting task of fighting the system for more time, and forgetting time altogether at the bottom of a whisky glass. A broken woman mourning the loss of time never spent with one who's out of time. Every character in this drama is lost somewhere in their own guilt ridden space and time, but director Losey makes sure his audience is always aware, littering the screen with watches and clocks ticking like a giant timebomb about to explode as the desperately pathetic father searches for a clue to disable the alarm. Lost in an alcoholic haze that is almost dreamlike in it's ability to paralyze action, he clumsily attempts to win back for his son the time he let slip away. Is it too late? An incredibly edgy, self-aware film, TIME WITHOUT PITY clearly states its objection to the State as executioner. From the opening scene, we know the son did not commit the murder, but neither the State, "You must keep your visit short . . . we don't want to upset the prisoner," the Church, "He's given himself over to more compassionate hands," or the anti-capital punishment advocates, "We're not interested in whether young Graham is innocent or guilty," seem to have a specific interest in the individual. To make matters worse, young Graham himself has given up hope and when his father pleads, "don't give up," he asks, "What difference would it have made if you had died when you were my age?" And this question gets to the core of the film; it's resonance heavily influencing the final pivotal scene.

Michael Redgrave plays David Graham, the alcoholic father of a young man (Alec McCowen) on death row in "Time Without Pity" from 1957. The film also stars Ann Todd, Leo McKern, Peter Cushing, Paul Daneman, Lois Harker, Joan Plowright, and Renee Houston.

Graham's son Alec is accused of killing a young woman. David was not around for the trial, due to a stint in rehab (which doesn't seem to have taken). Alec is very hostile to him now.

Meanwhile, Alec's surrogate family, the Stanfords (McKern, Todd, and Daneman) are at odds - Mr. Stanford wants nothing to do with the case or Alec, where his wife and son want to help. It seems to David that everyone is keeping secrets, and he has to find out what they are before his son is hanged.

Okay film but by today's more subtle acting standards, way over the top in some cases. Michael Redgrave is wonderful, desperate, fighting for his son's life as he battles his habit. Leo McKern, a magnificent character actor best known as Rumpole of the Bailey, yells his way through his role. He's in good company with the loud, overdramatic music. Ann Todd gives a lovely performance.

There are a couple of jarring editing mistakes you won't miss.

Michael Redgrave, the head of a great acting dynasty of children and grandchildren, is always worth seeing. See it for him.

Time Without Pity is directed by Joseph Losey and adapted to screenplay by Ben Barzman from the Emlyn Williams play Someone Waiting. It stars Michael Redgrave, Ann Todd, Leo McKern, Paul Daneman, Peter Cushing, Alec McCowen, Renee Houston and Lois Maxwell. Music is by Tristram Cary and cinematography by Freddie Francis.

David Graham (Redgrave) is a recovering alcoholic who comes out of the sanitarium to try and prove his son is innocent of murder. His son, Alec (McCowen), is to be hanged in 24 hours for the slaying of his girlfriend. David finds he is constantly met with brick walls and his sobriety is tested at every turn, but salvation may lie with the suspicious Stanford family...

Blacklisted in America, Joseph Losey went to the UK and made a number of films under various pseudonyms, Time Without Pity marked the first time he would put his own name to the production. It's also a film that stands tall as another of Losey's excellent British offerings.

Losey and his team do not make a murder mystery, from the off we see who the killer is and it's not young Alec Graham. This is a device that in the wrong hands has often over the years proved costly, where viewers looking for suspense have been sorely short changed. What happens here is that we are privy to an investigation by a man in misery, battling his demons as he frantically searches for redemption.

Tick Tock. Tick Tock.

Shunned by his estranged son, who would rather be hanged for a crime he didn't commit than accept his "waster" father's help - that might in turn give him false hope, David Graham is a haunted being who is closer to solving the case than he knows. This brings us viewers tantalisingly into the play, we know who it is, we can see how they react around David and how the other players who are hiding something also behave from scene to scene. The script never looses focus, it constantly keeps a grip on the tension as the clock ticks down on the Graham's.

Tick Tock. Tick Tock.

Losey and the great Freddie Francis are a dream pairing, a meeting of minds who could produce striking lighting compositions and scenes of other worldly distinction. Time Without Pity is full of such film making smarts. Time is a key, obviously, clocks feature constantly, including one classic era film noir extended scene as David visits a potential witness who has her home filled with alarm clocks! Alarm clocks that keep going off at regular intervals, thus putting an already twitchy and sweaty David Graham further on the edge of his nerves.

Tick Tock. Tick Tock.

One scene enforces that on the page there's an anti-capital punishment message, but as a bunch of suits sit in a room digressing about the ethics of it all etc, Losey and Francis fill the room with stripped shadows filtered via the lead patterned windows, it's that what you remember, not a social message. Gorgeous and potent all in one. Mirrors feature as well, with one elevator shot superb, while the bittersweet ending deserves better credit than it got at the time of release. Certainly noir lovers will enjoy it as much as they enjoy some other kinks in the story narrative.

Over the top of it all is a brilliant musical score by Tristram Cary (all his 50s work is worth checking out), three years before Herrmann brought bloodied strings to Psycho, Cary deals from an earlier deck of cards with string menace supreme, while his ticking clock motif is a pearler. Redgrave is terrific, a sweaty mass of fragility, while Todd, Cushing and Houston (wonderful) bring class to their respective characters. Losey's misstep is in not reigning in McKern, who is way too animated throughout, but such is the strength of everything elsewhere, it can't hurt the picture at all. Oh and look out for future Miss. Moneypenny Lois Maxwell, the little minx.

Now widely available on DVD with a good print, Time Without Pity demands to be better known. 9/10

Jenny Cole is killed and her drunken boyfriend Alec Graham is set to hang for it. His attorney Jeremy Clayton (Peter Cushing) picks up his recovering alcoholic father David Graham (Michael Redgrave) from the airport. He had been away in rehab in Canada. He has less than 24 hours to clear his son's name and stop the execution.

I like the mystery premise but I would give the man more time. It's a little too convenient to give him less than a day to solve a case which probably lasted months if not years. It's too little time to solve the case in a believable way. It would also help to not show Robert Stanford's face in the opening. That takes away from a possible compelling mystery. I do like the progression of the plot and its final conclusion. The acting is great although Leo McKern goes overboard sometimes. This is terrific.

This Emlyn Williams play about the relentless search for truth intertwines craftily in and out of the lives of some very imperfect human beings and builds to a surprising but inevitable ending.

Redgrave, McKern, Todd, Plowright, Maxwell, Daneman and the rest of the cast all do well to bring this gritty black and white puzzle into focus. The son played by Alec McGowen was a bit over-the-top at times but then his character's madness required that.

It's not a masterpiece...but I don't expect there are too many of those around. But what it does provide in dramatic tension elicits interest and compassion from the viewer until the very end.

The Tristram Cary music must be cited here for its unflinching power to shake us up and take notice of the action on the screen. If there is any masterful work here it is the music.

The only qualm was the less-than-satisfying editing which tended to bring the down the tension-building instead of heightening it.

Yes, it was a low-budget movie...it's a cop-out to say that in view of the fine acting of the magnificent cast which redeemed it many times over.

I'd recommend this to fans of film-noir, classic thrillers, mysteries and the British cinema.

I found this film so mesmerizing that when it ended, I put it on again and watched it a second time. There are complaints galore voiced by reviewers here, and almost without exception I don't understand them. They say the film is overacted. That it is incoherent. That the musical score is terrible. That the police should have easily identified the killer. And on we go. I admit to being a performance-driven viewer, and except for, of all things, a Walter Huston-Claudette Colbert film from 1929, I don't think I've seen a new (to me) movie in at least a year (and I sometimes watch three or four a night) that was as excitingly acted as was this one. This is not a spoiler, but I will list it as such, just in case, as seems to be the case here, some people didn't watch the opening of the film. It starts with the murder - somewhat accidental - of a beautiful girl by an enraged Leo McKern. There, everybody knows this from the first 30 seconds (even before the credits appear), so you should, too. Right from that scene, and in every other one in which he appears, McKern is shown to be something of a nut job. He flies off the handle at anybody and everybody with what may be the loudest voice in the British Theater. His wife is afraid of him, his son seems to be terrified of him, and at all times he acts like someone who could go off the deep end in about 15 seconds. This is the character as written! Leo McKern does not OVERACT it. When someone asks why the police didn't cotton on to him as the potential murderer, the answer is simple: he has an alibi for the time of the killing, and being the wealthy head of a large and successful company, it is obvious that he can keep his terrible temper under control when in professional or non-family settings. Besides which, the victim's boyfriend got drunk with her, and then when found the next morning, could not recall the prior night's events, and never claims absolute innocence because he's not certain he didn't kill her. Enter his father, as magnificently played by Michael Redgrave. With all the great roles he played on screen from THE LADY VANISHES on to DEAD OF NIGHT and THE BROWNING VERSION, I think this is the best acting job of his screen career. He is a severe alcoholic who has just spent two years in a Canadian sanitarium, divorced by his doctors from just about any contact with the outside world, even to the confiscation of newspapers and magazines, and upon release he finds that his son is about to be executed for murder. Arriving in London by plane, he looks right from the start like an extremely troubled and vulnerable man who may, even in the absence of his son's problems, be exerting only a tenuous hold on his sanity and emotions. Redgrave goes through the entire film in the most incredibly complex gradations of the character we first see, and how he was able to keep those gradations going so well, scene to scene, over what must have been at least a few weeks of filming is damn near awe-inspiring. Think of his ventriloquist character in DEAD OF NIGHT, take the insanity out and put paranoia, fear, guilt and a sense of impending doom in its place, and that is the person Redgrave plays so perfectly through every second of the entire film. It is a great performance, as good or better than anything else he did on the screen. Also to be mentioned here is an actor I did not previously know, Paul Daneman, as McKern's son. A handsome young man, Daneman looks uncomfortable, frightened, squeamish, and near suicidal throughout a good portion of the film, and as you get to know Dad, you understand why, but it is perhaps the only one of the lead performances that might be termed 'underacted'. I will see more of his work. And Ann Todd is excellent, and very beautiful (more so than in many earlier films), at, for the 1950s, the relatively late age of 48. The three other ladies in the film, Lois Maxwell (in an unusual role for her as a femme fatale), Renee Houston (magnificently coarse and blowsy as Lois's mother) and, if you can believe it, Joan Plowright as a cheapish chorus girl are excellent. In any large cast that incudes Peter Cushing, and where Cushing is rather pushed into the shade by the other actors, you know you are getting a textbook lesson in the art of acting, even if a lot of it is over-the-top. But there's good over-the-top (think John Barrymore) and not so good over-the-top (think Bela Lugosi, at least on occasion), and while it is really Redgrave who holds the film together (except when he takes his trench coat off to try to wave down a racing car driven by McKern, and then at the very end for a different reason, he is dressed in that trench coat, indoors and outdoors, for the entire film, as the time he has to save his son's life is so compressed that he never seems to spend more than a few minutes in any one place), over-the-top honors belong to Mr. McKern every step of the way. And given that the story is based on an Emlyn Williams play, they must have opened it up considerably for the film, as it seems to take place all over London, instead of in one or two stage settings. I think the copy I've seen is the cut one mentioned elsewhere, as there are a couple of scenes that are rather sprung upon the viewer with no real lead-up - how did McKern end up in that pub drinking and lamenting the loneliness of his life with Redgrave (who would seem to be, in comparison, the loneliest man on the planet)? how was it decided that McKern would drive Redgrave anywhere at all? how did Ann Todd go from having her hair piled on high to having it down on her shoulders if a good slap from McKern did not effect the change? But we see none of this. Doesn't matter, though, since I'm not recommending this as one of the great mysteries (we know who did it, but how will everybody else find out?), or noirs, or even as containing the most sensible of cast characterizations. I'm simply recommending it for the acting and the pure visceral excitement that can be garnered from watching great British actors acting greatly, and especially under the masterful direction of Joseph Losey. (And the finale is a killer - in more ways than one!)

TIME WITHOUT PITY is a British drama with some unusually dark and well-drawn characters in the cast. The lead actor is the great Michael Redgrave (DEAD OF NIGHT) who plays a washed-up alcoholic who arrives in England from Canada when he learns that his son has been accused of murder and is due to be hanged shortly.

Redgrave believes that his son is innocent and must work to uncover the real culprit and bring him to justice before his son hangs, but it won't be an easy job, especially when the stress of the situation gets to him and he begins drinking again. As such, TIME WITHOUT PITY is a rather depressing and grimly realistic movie despite the contrivances of the plot; it feels more like THE LOST WEEKEND than a thriller in its depiction of the depths the human spirit will sink to.

The supporting cast is very good including a stand-out turn from a young Leo McKern. Renee Houston, Lois Maxwell, Ann Todd, and Joan Plowright are the females of the cast, while Peter Cushing plays a lawyer just before he made the big time in THE CURSE OF FRANKNSTEIN, and there's a brief role for fellow Hammer actor Richard Wordsworth. I wouldn't call this a perfect film by any means, but the twist ending is particularly good and worth the wait.

Just watched this on Talking Pictures. This channel are doing a great job in bringing us a wide range of "long missing from TV" movies, most of the time in excellent prints.

Not sure what to say about this? I think Michael Redgrave is/was one of our greatest actors, but... everyone has there off days, and, in this movie, EVERYONE seems to be having an off day!

Losey whips them all up into a frenzy of over acting, particularly Leo McKern & Alec McOwen, and things are not helped by the ridiculously over-wrought musical score, which at times drowns out the dialogue.

By the end, I couldn't have cared less who did what to whom,and why,as I was losing the will to live!

I finally caught this interesting little film about six months ago on Turner Classic films. This is based on one of Emlyn Williams twisty murder plays (like his classic, NIGHT MUST FALL). Here we have Michael Redgrave as the father of Alec MacGowan (who is on death row) trying to find out who actually committed the murder his son is charged with. Redgrave is an alcoholic, and a failed parent, and his every effort is stymied by hostility and stonewalling. But slowly he realizes that the guilty party is a millionaire car manufacturer played by Leo McKern. Peter Cushing also appears, as the solicitor who gradually becomes convinced that Redgrave knows what he's talking about (a welcome normal role for the horror film star). I recommend the film, particularly for the ironic way that Redgrave finally turns the tables on McKern, making it impossible for McKern to escape punishment.

The sports car they drive is a1955 Austin Healey ... still taxed and registered somewhere - surprised how many vehicles on these old films are still running .. particularly Land Rovers and Sports Cars

Love these Talking Pictures TV

Is this film excessive? Yes. Does image pile upon image in a cry of horror? Yes. And why is it excessive? Because it is a cry against capital punishment in England circa 1957, and Losey throws every powerful image at the dreadful thing capital punishment is. Those who approve of an eye for an eye will hate it, and the ending is so tight and appalling that I nearly cried. I am giving away no spoilers but this is a film as relevant today as it was then, with America holding on to barbarism and many other countries like China thinking that killing someone is the 'natural' thing to do. The philosophy is a murder for a murder, and in some countries it is also lawful to execute for homosexuality, drugs etc. As Andre Cayette states in his film 'We are all Murderers' (given the weaker title of 'Are we all Murderers?' in England) this film is a brutal punch against the system. 'Time without Pity' is greater than 'Yield to the Night' and 'I Want to Live' because the frantic speed of the film and its haunting images make you aware of the terror in the situation. There is no noble path to acceptance as in 'Yield to the Night' or Susan Hayward's stiff upper lip as she enters the gas chamber. What we get is a screaming young man, howling and pleading, and these cries echo in the viewer's brain or should.

The acting is superb. Never has the icy fire of Ann Todd's acting been greater; never has Michael Redgrave given his all to a role as he does in this, and even Joan Plowright in a minor role stares with a look of horror. Fortunately this film is now shown on 'Talking Pictures' and today in England, being the day when a new government has come to power, is the right day to emphatically say yet again that a) the wrong person can be hung and b) even murder, horrible though it is, never justifies the cruel procedure of murder in return.

In england, david graham (michael redgrave) visits his son alec (alec mccowen) in prison. Alec has been convicted of the murder of a young girl. David is convinced that his son is innocent, and is determined to clear his name. But time is running out. And their attorney (peter cushing) hasn't been much help. The family of the deceased wants nothing to do with them. Even alec has resigned himself to the pending execution, and won't help clear his own name. Every time david tries to follow up on a clue, he finds resistance. No-one seems to want to help. It's pretty good. I can see why this started as a play. Lots of talking. Directed by joseph losey. He was nominated for two baftas, ten years later. Losey had stayed in england to avoid the HUAC hearings. Film based on the play by emlyn williams. It's well done. Cushing looks so normal and harmless in this, after playing so many dark, evil characters over his film career.

As is well known, Joseph Losey was born in the United States but in 1954 he resettled to the United Kingdom in order not to face the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) and its intimidatory tactics to extract information relating to himself and others of alleged communist persuasion.

In the UK he achieved works of considerable distinction. TIME WITHOUT PITY reveals his capacity to draw superior performances from his cast, notably from Michael Redgrave and Leo McKern, with competent support from Peter Cushing, Ann Todd, Alec McCowen... and future Miss Moneypenny of James Bondian fame, Lois Maxwell.

First rate B&W cinematography by Freddie Francis. I find the weakest link to be the script. Redgrave is the drunkard of a father who manages to leave his treatment institution in Canada only the day before his son is scheduled to be hanged for supposedly killing a young woman. In an often drunken stupor, Redgrave somehow manages to hit the mouche where everyone else had missed it over the course of months of investigation (Scotland Yard not that great, after all...)

And so he finds the real killer, whose temper keeps getting the better of him. That the wrong man is about to be hanged is a clear indictment of the death penalty in force in the UK at the time. The acting, sublime as it is, often borders on the hysterical and cannot paper over all credibility cracks - which is a pity but does not irreparably damage the film: it is still very watchworthy. 7/10.

I like Losey's films quite a bit - well The Servant in particular. This film is no Servant . It is a tour de force of overacting, particularly Leo McKern. I don't think I have ever seen such an over the top performance by anyone in anything. It really does him and the film no favours. Michael Redgrave acquits himself quite well but it must have been a thankless task holding on with McKern's histrionics. Ann Todd is the epitome of British middle-class angst and is very annoying for being so. I chose to watch this because it was a Losey film but it disappoints me in every way. It makes very little sense and could have done with much tighter editing and control over the actors' performances.

This is a cracking suspense film that seems to give the game away in the opening shots, but has an extremely clever suspense and surprise ending worthy of Hitchcock himself to climax a seemingly familiar race against time to prevent a wrongful execution, that plot has been done a hundred times on film and on TV over the years but never as well as this. Superb central role (Redgrave) a terrific actor and a really good supporting cast make this no ordinary suspenser.

Relentlessly emotional study of a man whose son is framed for a murder he didn't commit and is facing the gallows. Great performances but the febrile atmosphere never lets up so the whole thing becomes faintly ridiculous. Joan Plowright is indeed great in this early appearance, as is Michael Redgrave who was at the peak of his powers, having played a similarly tormented character in The Browning Version. Whether it was meant as an indictment of capital punishment is open to conjecture but yes, probably. Losey was the kind of director whose politics and social conscience tended to make themselves known.