Absolutely the worst movie.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Lance Comfort directed some pretty distinctive films in the 1940s ("Hatter's Castle"(1941) etc) but after the commercial failure of "Portrait of Clare" (1950) he was soon relegated to Bs. He found himself in demand, even doing a TV series "Douglas Fairbanks Presents", because he managed to make even his most insignificant films stand out usually by making his main characters a little naïve or gullible. This was certainly the case with this movie, adapted from the book "To Dusty Death" by Hugh McCutcheon and with a plot line lifted from the vastly superior and believable "Home By Seven" (1952). In this one Richard Logan (William Franklyn) stumbles into his flat after being found groggy and dazed in a local wasteground by a young boy. He thinks he is late by a few hours but distraught wifey Julie (Moira Redmond) informs him that he has been missing for three weeks!! She is understandably frantic and has already linked him to his comely secretary. It may be Franklyn's demeanour but wow, he sure looks shifty, especially when he is busy denying knowledge of good time girl Mavis (pretty Jacqueline Jones looks very fetching) who is forever ringing Julie and demanding to speak to Richard. Another worry is a private investigator hired by Julie and whose card turns up in Richard's pocket - he has been found dead and Richard can't be certain whether he killed him in those three lost weeks!!Then there is "the song" - "My Heart is the Lover", one of those dreary songs that often turned up in these type of movies and sung by nondescript singer Ronny Hall. Only problem is - it is used as a plot device so harassed Richard begins hearing it everywhere he goes - Julie even plays it when they're having breakfast!! And did I mention he also has the strange feeling he is being followed. Every time he comes home he looks as though he has been roughed up and I'm sorry, Julie isn't buying the old "I fell over" routine. He soon realises he had been kidnapped by a gang who want him to break into one of his own safes to steal a priceless diamond and he was coshed when he tried to escape - fortunately for the crooks he lost all recollection of his entrapment. By the time his memory returns (through hailing a cab) he has already pieced together the facts that it is an inside job!!Beautiful Nanette Newman is almost the one bright spot - her Mary is coolly 1960's chic, she is his efficient secretary but surely she couldn't be involved!! She is engaged to resident teddy boy, the charmless Ted (Anthony Booth, soon to be cast in classic British comedy "Till Death Us Do Part" and also the father of former P.M. Tony Blair's wife Cherie) - he has a chip on his shoulder and for some odd reason seems to despise Logan. This is a solid little thriller distributed by the lowly Butcher Company which was the oldest film company in Britain, starting out in 1909 with training documentaries.

This is a British crime film that seems to have used chunks of other films,tried to reassemble them only to find that they don't fit together.Franklyn returns home after 3 unexplained weeks.Weren't the police out looking for him?He was kidnapped so that he could reveal details of a safe designed by his firm.A device common in many fifties films.it is unclear as to whether he has amnesia or is just constantly beaten up.Later on in the film there is a flashback when Franklyn finally realises what has happened.However at the same time he is being kidnapped by the same gang for the same reason.Extremely confusing.The ending is rather predictable and not particularly exciting.

Amnesia is a staple of film noir and has been dealt with memorably, if you'll pardon the pun, in dozens of films such as Street of Chance (1942), Somewhere in the Night (1946), Home at Seven (1952) and Spellbound (1945). More recently, Colin Farrell lost his memory in Total Recall (2012) which some will no doubt label as a techno-noir. This film, however, is easily forgotten. Lance Comfort was a prolific director. Looking at the list of films I've seen this year I come across Tomorrow at Ten (1962), Bedelia (1946), Hatter's Castle (1941,) Breaking Point (1961), The Painted Smile (1962), Rag Doll(1962), and Hotel Reserve (1944), all directed by Comfort, and all superior to this absurdly plotted, oddly photographed (there are several pointless, lingering close-ups of William Franklyn, Bruno Barnabe, Nanette Newman et al) and poorly acted (especially by Franklyn, who gives underacting a bad name) programmer that would have been more effective at the 50-60 minutes mark rather the thrill-less 77 I sat through. Still, this time tomorrow I won't remember a thing about this dud.

A safe designer called Richard Logan (William Franklyn) awakes on a bomb site in Wapping High Street after being coshed by a gang of thugs. However, he finds that as a result of his head injury he has lost his memory and has no recollection of what has happened to him over the past three weeks. In addition, the PI hired by his wife, Julie (Moira Redmond), to find him has been found murdered and Logan has his business card in his pocket. Could he have been the killer? It transpires that a safe, which his firm designed for the owners, has been broken open and the contents stolen. It seems that he was abducted by a criminal gang and forced to break open the safe and with the aid of his wife sets out to unravel the mystery. But the gang lead by Clifton Conrad (Leonard Sachs), who owns a seedy club in Soho is intent on murdering him before he regains his memory and exposes them...An efficient b-pic thriller from quota quickie specialists, Butcher's Film Distributors, which is briskly directed by Lance Comfort and provides enough intrigue to keep the punters entertained for the first half of the double bill. The main drawback is Comfort's own script (adapted from the novel To Dusty Death by Hugh McCutcheon), which at times borders on the absurd. But the director makes best possible use of what obviously was a shoe string budget and the proceedings have a nice feeling for the place (London and the Home Counties) and period which are much enhanced by the atmospheric lighting of veteran cameraman Basil Emmott. The film's other weak aspect is the irritating slushy pop ballad, My Heart Is The Lover, sung by one Ronnie Hall which keeps reoccurring throughout the movie as it is used as a plot device - the hero keeps on hearing it in his head but he can't think where he could have heard it as it was only recently released while he was missing. Needless to say it provides him with a vital clue later as to the gang's whereabouts. The vocalist Hall appears in a nightclub scene and trivia buffs should note that the backing band is no other than The Dave Clark Five who were shortly to become international pop stars. Pit Of Darkness also has a better cast than one would expect of a British B including William Franklyn, Moira Redmond, Nigel Green and a young Anthony Booth best known as Alf Garnett's son-in-law Till Death Us Do Part.