Bitter Harvest

Having broken into Disney films in the late 1950s, Janet Munro suffered from typecasting for much of her tragically brief career (she died at just 38). Consequently, she was too rarely offered gutsier assignments like this adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's novel The Street Has a Thousand Skies. As the Welsh innocent who is abused by various London ne'er-do-wells, she exhibits not only a touching vulnerability but also a credible inner reserve, which sustains her after she herself exploits a kindly barman (John Stride). Scripted by Ted Willis, this lacks the bite of contemporary examples of social realism, but director Peter Graham Scott comes up with some nouvelle vague flourishes, while its themes anticipate those of Swinging Sixties sagas like Darling (1965) and Georgy Girl (1966).