Please don't spend money on this.

I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

A Major Disappointment

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This flick was screened in 16mm at the Gene Siskel Film Center in 2016 as part of a "British noir" series; associate director of programming Martin Rubin wrote in the center's monthly gazette that this was an "undiscovered gem" that "combines taut suspense with a sensitive treatment of a delicate subject." I agree with that assessment.This film also won me over by getting to the juicy bits, fast; the pacing is nice and quick, so that the pervy Mr. Oldberry does his sick deed (off screen, of course), and the Carter family is left to grapple with the consequences. The Canadian-set film is written superbly for a 1960 "issues" film with a schlocky title; it seamlessly morphs from domestic drama to legal procedural to suspenseful thriller in the final act.A movie like this could have easily gone the way of unintended farce, but its well-rounded characters and willingness to look at all sides of the issue mostly keep it floating above the realm of silliness.The audience at the showing I was in gave a couple chuckles in the beginning, when the film opened with a title card warning us that this story could potentially take place in any town, at any time; those sniggers subsided when the film proved its nuance during the rest of its 80-minute runtime. A great, underseen gem.

Highly controversial at the time of it's release and still disturbing today "Never Take Sweets from a Stranger" now feels like a polemic which somewhat dilutes its effectiveness as a thriller. It's extremely well-intended if a little on the dull side. The subject is child abuse; of course, being 1960 the abuse in question is never actually shown and is actually not even looked on as abuse by anyone other than the parents of the abused child.Felix Aylmer is admirably and bravely cast as the old man who gets a couple of little girls to dance naked for him while he gets off on it. Unfortunately Aylmer is a local bigwig while the family of one of the abused children are newcomers to this closed community who then gang up against them, taking the side of the abuser's family. (The family of the other little girl don't seem to want to know). Consequently the film is as much about the abuse of power as it is about sexual abuse.It was a product of Hammer Studios and sold as a 'horror' film but it's a very serious and sober picture, a message movie rather than an outright thriller. It is well written and Patrick Allen and Gwen Watford are fine as the parents while Niall MacGinnis as Aylmer's attorney and Alison Leggatt as the little girl's grandmother are outstanding. Today the film remains virtually unseen and while it may be no masterpiece at least you have to admire its intentions.

I knew that this movie concerns a child molester, so I wasn't sure how that would turn out as the plot of a thriller. My opinion after watching it is that Hammer treated the subject in the right way, but that making the film probably wasn't a good idea.The story is simple...two 9yr old girls go to an old man's house on the promise of some candy, and are assaulted (well they are not hurt but it amounts to an assault). This event opens the story, and the rest of the movie charts the attempts of the parents of one child to have their story believed. What's interesting is that the main angle - which is that the molester is part of the most influential family in town, and nobody dares to challenge them - could very easily happen today. Sure the film looks dated now, especially the idea of making the molester himself into an almost imbecilic goon when it's very easy for child molesters to pass unnoticed among society, but it's still unnerving enough to have impact.Because the subject matter is unpleasant, it kind of makes watching the film hard to enjoy. There isn't a lot of plot but the acting is all very good, especially the family and their daughter, who do seem to react very realistically to the situation...although it's very obvious that all the cast are British and can barely pull of what are supposed to be Canadian accents. I'm glad to have seen this odd little film, but I can see why the topic doesn't come up very often - there's probably no easy way to make entertainment out of it.

This fine drama as well as "Cash on Demand" are, in my opinion, two of the best dramas produced by Hammer Film, though not as well known as Joseph Losey's science-fiction drama"The Damned", or Michael Carreras' thriller "Maniac", which had casts with better known actors as Kerwin Mathews, Viveca Lindfors, Macdonald Carey, Nadia Gray and Alexander Knox. In the line of New York scholar Ruth Goldberg's recent studies of the evolution of horror film, this is definitely a precursor to her approach, according to which characters from films as "No Country for Old Men", "Safe", "Fargo", "Precious", "Monster", and others, are real monsters that convey the feeling of fright found in the traditional horror motion pictures. The old man (Felix Aylmer) who abuses two little girls, who is taken to court, and finally follows them in the woods, is definitely one of the most terrifying monsters to come out of Hammer. If it still works today as an effective and startling drama, in 1960 it must have been shocking to audiences. Very good black & white widescreen cinematography by maestro Freddie Francis ("The Innocents", "The Elephant Man"). Don't miss it.