Sträfling 3312 – Auf der Flucht (1947)

Sträfling 3312 – Auf der Flucht: Directed by Alberto Cavalcanti. With Sally Gray, Trevor Howard, Griffith Jones, Rene Ray. After WW2, former RAF airman Clem Morgan joins a gang of black-market smugglers-thieves but when a robbery goes wrong, Clem is caught , framed for a policeman’s murder, and is sent to prison where he plots his escape and revenge.

“Well, what have we got here?u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWeu0026#39;ve got a 1946/7 London – rainy, smog- and fog-ridden – swarming with sweaty, sadistic small-time black marketeers, hag-faced toothless harridan prostitutes, rat faced squealers, slimy grasses, heart-of-gold cashmere-wearing Judys, squalid, smoky dockside boozers, and bobbies in mackintoshes and capes (told you it was raining) getting run over and bashed over the coconut.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eEnter ex-RAF Clem Morgan (Trevor Howard). He wants a bit of action with a gang led by sharp, smoothie, sadistic, snooker-playing knuckle-duster wielding Narcy (Narcissus)(Griffith Jones) – but he baulks at their drug (sherbert!) dealing side. So heu0026#39;s framed into a cop murder – very heavy stuff in immediate post-war England. But this isnu0026#39;t The Blue Lamp – itu0026#39;s nearer Jules Dassinu0026#39;s famous Night and the City and precedes both.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAs well as a crackling script by Noel Langley weu0026#39;ve got a runaway fugitive we know is innocent, more bobbies, more rain, and a head-butting, knife-throwing, rooftop-climbing finale.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eA great British noir sadly often overlooked. See it!”