Walk a Tightrope

Fresh from collaborating on Do You Know This Voice? (1964), Hollywood star Dan Duryea, director Frank Nesbitt and actor/writer Neil McCallum reunited on this ingenious if inertly acted British thriller. Here, Duryea stars as Carl Lutcher, a docker cooped up in a bedsit with a younger lover, who finds himself on trial for murder after a man is shot in front of his horrified wife (Patricia Owens). However, there's a twist in this seemingly straightforward tale and it's only when Lutcher is on trial that the truth finally emerges. Reeking of a detached cynicism that gives way to furious despair, Duryea makes a typically resistible lowlife. But Owens isn't always as assured as the grieving widow, while Richard Leech lays it on a little thickly as the family friend with a maddening case of amnesia. Nesbitt directs steadily despite a modest budget, while McCallum enjoys his cameo as the counsel cross-examining a trio of unreliable witnesses.