The greatest movie ever!

Absolutely brilliant

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

John Mills tracks down the real culprit of the murder he was sent to jail for in this tense British drama of exile and return. The real murderer is now a comfortable businessman, and the visual contrasts between his dubious offices in the London docks and Mills' derelict boat far out on the river estuary gives a resonance to the film it would be hard to find in a modern setting. Freed from jail but still imprisoned by the past, Mills' character spurns the touching companionship of another refugee on the Kent marshes (Eva Bergh) about whose past we know nothing, but it seems to be destiny that has brought them together. This is one of the few films that resolves a labyrinthine revenge-story without the plot becoming mechanical, and the bleak monochrome visuals are part of its emotional power.

This is a highly superior British film directed by Robert Hamer. All of the cast give splendid performances, and there are some truly wonderful character roles, the best such performance coming from John Slater, who is amazingly bizarre and original. The film features a man let out of prison after twelve years for a murder he did not commit, and his search for the people who gave false witness and put him there. John Mills delivers one of his first rate performances as a grimly determined, sombre and brooding man who is obsessed with the injustice done to him. With him at the centre of the story, the entire film then becomes wholly convincing. There are some wonderful location shots, and the row of abandoned barges rotting in the mudflats of the Thames Estuary is an eerie main setting for much of the action. Elizabeth Sellars is particularly effective in making this film work. She plays a despicable coward, whose cowardice runs so deep it effects every aspect of her existence. In order to portray something as profound as this, it was essential that she do so with understatement and restraint, occasionally veering near to immobility as the fear freezes her up inside. The fact that Elizabeth Sellars does this successfully and never gives way to the temptation to overact or settle a scene with some easy broad stroke is a tribute to her professionalism. Eva Bergh is a bit too young and pretty for her part as the Eastern European refugee girl, but that is the only slightly false note. Thora Hird is marvellous, as always. John McCallum underplays his police inspector-married-to-a-dodgy witness role very satisfactorily. The story culminates in the main characters having to face moral choices, so that this powerful, gripping and effective thriller is not only well made, but has a worthy purpose.

This is an excellent British film, which has managed to pass the test of time, and still stands today as an absorbing & well executed piece of work. The story line is strong, and the locations are particularly memorable, especially the bleak & foreboding Kent coastline which adds significantly to the brooding atmosphere. The performances are uniformly excellent, with the sole exception of Elizabeth Sellars who barely changes expression throughout. John Mills gives one of his most intense performances in the lead role, and demonstrates once again what an extremely fine actor he always was. The direction & editing are first class, and the film never falters in holding the attention. For fans of the genre, this is not to be missed.

Clearly Mr John Mills either was not aware of that piece of Eastern wisdom or he chose to ignore it.In view of his incarceration for 12 years for a murder he did not commit he would be less than human if he did not at least contemplate bloody vengeance against those who conspired to put him away.In this brilliant little Hitchcockian noir director Mr Robert Hamer makes full use of the wind - scoured mudbanks of the Thames Estuary and peoples them with an almost Dickensian selection of semi - grotesques living in barges,wooden huts and railway carriages on the riverside scrubland. Mr Mills,having fallen on hard times,lives in a timber shack conveniently close to a ramshackle cafe occupied by more sinister characters than you could shake a stick at. His former girl - friend - one of his persecutors - has now married the senior police officer involved in his case and ,by contrast lives a life of almost sybaritic luxury in a big 1930s villa.She and her husband are determinedly middle - class and have a little boy who wears a quartered school cap.They use linen napkins with silver rings for breakfast.She is played by Miss Elizabeth Sellars in typical "1950s repressed English Housewife" mode with plenty of clutching hands and pleading glances.Her husband,Mr John Mcallum,is that almost extinct movie species a detective with a conscience.He runs his hands round his jaw in moments of great emotion,but he doesn't have those too often. Mr John Slater and Miss Thora Hird provide some amusement as an ill - matched couple but the film is mainly a triumph for Mr Mills,whether stalking the mean streets of Gravesend or bearding the villain in his den at the Pool of London.Incidentally,watch out for the great Mr Harold Lang making the most of a small part as viciously camp blond-rinsed minder at the bad guy's HQ. The Thameside chase is reminiscent of M.Jules Dassin's largely forgotten "Night and the City",but the overall feel is most definitely that of Mr. Hitchcock.I doubt if Mr Hamer was consciously constructing a "hommage", but The Master's imprint can be seen in many of the exteriors and in the relationship between the detective and his wife. Mr Mills has one exquisite faux pas near the end.Up till then his character has been resolutely genteel,but,as he lies bleeding from a bullet wound,the detective asks how he is."It's only me arm",he grits, reverting in extremis to the Lower Deck. "The Long Memory" deserves a place alongside "The Blue Lamp" and "It always rains on Sundays" in the pantheon of British noirs which,with the passing of time,are being recognised as the seminal works that have hugely influenced the TV and movie industry in the second half of the 20th century and beyond.