May 10thVictim** GB 1961. Rank/AFD. 100m. bw
A homosexual barrister goes on the trail of a network of blackmailers, at risk to his own career and marriage.
A daring subject for the time is treated with rather a heavy hand in rather artificial style, a fairly humdrum thriller with a heavy amount of sub-text and unnecessary gloomy photography, as though the central theme is a form of dark evil (which is probably what got it past the censors). All a little bland by today's standards of course, but interesting to watch in its more sensitive scenes, and it is certainly rare for a major British film, before or since, to deal with a taboo in such detail.

Written by: Janet Green, John McCormick.
Producer: Michael Relph.
Director: Basil Dearden.
Starring: Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Sims, Peter McEnery, Dennis Price, Nigel Stock, Donald Churchill, Anthony Nicholls, Norman Bird, Derren Nesbitt, Charles Lloyd Pack, John Barrie, John Cairney.
Photography: Otto Heller.
Music: Philip Green.
Editing: John D. Guthridge.