SUSAN SHAW & DONALD HOUSTON IN WOLF RILLA'S 'THE LARGE ROPE'

Donald Houston and Peter Byrne in THE LARGE ROPE Year: 1953 Rating: ***1/2

Before becoming known as THE LONG ROPE, director Wolf Rilla's THE LARGE ROPE meant that Donald Houston's central character, a young man released from jail and returning to his small hometown village, is basically caught right in the thick of it...

Not only does no one want him around, especially ex-girlfriend Susan Shaw and his former best friend she's marrying, but he winds up accused of murdering a flirtatious older woman played by an actress who made a living brilliantly playing them... 

Susan Shaw and Donald Houston in THE LARGE ROPE

After Vanda Godsell's killed by a person she sees and we don't, what's a kind of frantic melodrama becomes a bonafide whodunnit, and Houston does a nice job frowning and arguing his way through various domiciles and a crowded pub full of drunks who basically want him dead...

Director Rilla, who'd later make another small town thriller in VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, keeps the pace on a hectically intriguing level, and the British actors (including Robert Brown, Peter Byrne and Edward Judd) are topnotch, going beyond the minuscule budget — that actually suits the desperate one-street purgatory.

Susan Shaw in THE LARGE ROPE with Vanda Godsell

Susan Shaw in THE LARGE ROPE with Christine Finn

Edward Judd in THE LARGE ROPE

Susan Shaw in THE LARGE ROPE

Leonard White in THE LARGE ROPE

Robert Brown in THE LARGE ROPE

Donald Houston in THE LARGE ROPE

Margaret Anderson in THE LARGE ROPE

Robert Brown and Vanda Godsell in THE LARGE ROPE