The Weapon

The most interesting thing about this Val Guest directed thriller is its use of actual London locations, something of a rarity at the time, and which gives it that touch of realism missing in the script. Overall, "The Weapon" isn't a bad little B-Movie, about a boy, (Jon Whiteley, Britain's favourite child star until Haley Mills came along), who finds a gun in some ruins and accidently shoots another boy with it. Of course that means young Whitely takes off while said gun had been used in a murder ten years before and it's up to Steve Cochran, Herbert Marshall and seemingly not very concerned mother Lizabeth Scott to find the boy before the killer does as well as catch the killer at the same time. It's a decent enough plot and Guest handles it more than competently. Unfortunately the performances let it down making this more of a guilty pleasure rather than a contender but it's still a pleasure and worth seeing.

Some children are playing in one of the old bombed out sites around London when 10-year old John Whiteley discovers a gun. The other children want to see it, but he holds onto it, and shoots another of the children. Terrified, he runs away. Soon, Scotland Yard inspector Herbert Marshall has called in US Army officer Steve Cochran to see if this has anything to do with a war time murder. Whiteley's mother, Lizabeth Scott, is worried. So is the man who used to gun to kill a man. It's a nicely timed story that gradually grows in speed and tension under the direction of directors Val Guest and Hal E. Chester. Never more than a programmer, it offers a nice portrait of a youngster who thinks that he is in a lot of trouble.

A routine show for me. A Val Guest film starring two American actors, such were so many British movies from this time - see Terence Fisher's ones. But no real surprises. The flat yarn about a young boy who finds a weapon among the ruins of a building in London and who runs away with it. It appears that this gun was used ten years ago for a murder. You stay awake all along this little story, but I am sure that you'll have forgotten all this two years later. Nothing exceptional. The ending is easily foreseeable. But it's always a pleasure to watch Lizabeth - the Throat - Scott and the likes of Steve Cochran and Herbert Marshall. Even in a British film. And val Guest is a pretty good artisan.