Released in America as Young Scarface, this is one of the most sinister crime films ever made in Britain and, but for several cuts by the censor, it would also have been one of the most shocking. However, Graham Greene, scripting from his own novel (not in collaboration with Terence Rattigan as many sources state), also drew some of the film's teeth by allowing gullible waitress Rose the faint hope that her malicious husband might love her after all - a contrivance that was given a glutinously spiritual slant by director John Boulting. Richard Attenborough (as Pinkie the teenage gangster) turns in the best performance of his career, and he is magnificently supported by William Hartnell and the underrated Carol Marsh as Rose.

Centring on the activities of a gang of assorted criminals and, in particular, their leader – a vicious young hoodlum known as "Pinkie" – the film's main thematic concern is the criminal underbelly evident in inter-war Brighton.