Carol Reed has made his film with deliberation and care, and has achieved splendid teamwork from every member of the cast. Occasionally too intent on pointing his moral and adorning his tale, he has missed little in its telling.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The New York Times by Bosley Crowther
A most intriguing film.
Suspense gives way to metaphor in a stark thriller that hints at the work to come from master Carol Reed.
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
This may be Reed’s most pretentious film, but it also happens to be one of his very best, beautifully capturing the poetry of a city at night (with black-and-white cinematography by Robert Krasker that’s within hailing distance of Gregg Toland and Stanley Cortez’s work with Orson Welles).
Though he has little coherent dialogue after a certain point, Mason is ideal as the embodiment of unsteadiness, physical and moral.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
The documentary vividness that Carol Reed brought to the streets of Vienna in The Third Man and London in The Fallen Idol, he here brings to Belfast in this fascinating but imperfect 1947 thriller.