Time Without Pity (1957) is a British film noir thriller about a father trying to save his son from execution for murder.
Directed by expatriate American Joseph Losey, after he was blacklisted in America due to McCarthyism, Time Without Pity was his second film in Britain and his first under his own name. The film stars Michael Redgrave, Ann Todd, and Leo McKern. It is also the second film of British cinematographer Freddie Francis, as director of photography (the British credit is simply "photography"). Joan Plowright appears briefly as a feisty chorus girl and Lois Maxwell, the original Miss Moneypenny of 14 James Bond films, also has a stand-out scene as a girl who can be bought.
The screenplay was written by fellow blacklisted writer Ben Barzman, adapted from the play Someone Waiting by Emlyn Williams.Synopsis
David Graham, a recovering alcoholic, returns to England with only 24 hours to save his son, Alec, from hanging for the murder of Alec's girlfriend, Jenny Cole. A neglectful, absentee father who has missed the entire trial while he was in rehab in Canada, Graham discovers his son, awaiting execution, at first refuses to even see him and when he does, to evince any hope for his case, let alone affection for his father.
Actors