The Secret Place (1957) Belinda Lee, Ronald Lewis, Michael Brooke, Michael Gwynn, Geoffrey Keen, David McCallum Movie Review

The Secret Place (1957)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Belinda Lee in The Secret Place (1957)

Same Old Record

Gerry Carter (Ronald Lewis) and his pal Steve (Michael Gwynn) are planning a jewel robbery in London's Hatton Garden, but they need a policeman's uniform to do the job as planned. That is how Molly Wilson (Belinda Lee) ends up involved as not only is she Gerry's girlfriend but her brother Mike (David McCallum) is also involved in the plan. But Molly's part is that a young boy called Freddie (Michael Brooke) is besotted with her and will pretty much do anything she asks of him and that includes taking one of his copper father's police uniforms. Whilst Gerry and his team pull of the robbery with ease they soon find the net closing in on them and their stolen jewels falling in to some unexpected hands.

Well "The Secret Place" starts off with a bang or at least the attention grabbing Belinda Lee getting herself ready to go out to work in a London kiosk. Unfortunately what follows on from this sadly fails to attain the same level of attention grabbing as we watch Gerry and his gang pull of the robbery but afterwards discover things haven't gone to plan leading to them wanting to stash the stolen jewels at Molly's place in her gramophone. Sadly whilst a chain of events leads to the gramophone changing hands the movie never really delivers that electric atmosphere needed to keep you glued to the story.

David McCallum in The Secret Place (1957)

But what "The Secret Place" has and what pretty much makes it still watch-able is a decent cast with David McCallum, Belinda Lee and Michael Brooke all delivering solid performances even though they are forgettable. In fact young Michael Brooke stands out because he delivers that childhood infatuation of young Freddie quite brilliantly yet we also get to see the conflict as he realises Molly used him to get a police uniform.

What this all boils down to is that "The Secret Place" ends up a middle of the road British thriller which what good moments there are end up balanced by the mediocre stuff. But with this being set in a post war London still featuring bombed out buildings I would imagine for some there might be some nostalgia value to this.


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