In an extraordinary performance, Dirk Bogarde plays a married barrister who is one of a large group of closeted London men who become targets of a blackmailer. Basil Dearden’s unmistakably political taboo buster was one of the first films to address homophobia head-on, a cry of protest against British laws forbidding homosexuality, and a sobering indictment of social intolerance and puritanism.
