| Desperate Moment | |
| Director: | Compton Bennett |
| Producer: | George H. Brown |
| Based On: | Desperate Moment by Martha Albrand |
| Starring: | Dirk Bogarde Mai Zetterling Philip Friend |
| Music: | Ronald Binge |
| Cinematography: | C.M. Pennington-Richards |
| Editing: | John D. Guthridge |
| Studio: | George H. Brown Productions (as Fanfare) |
| Distributor: | General Film Distributors (Uk) |
| Runtime: | 88 minutes |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
Desperate Moment is a 1953 British thriller film directed by Compton Bennett and starring Dirk Bogarde, Mai Zetterling and Philip Friend.[1] It is based on the 1951 novel of the same title by Martha Albrand.
It was made at Pinewood Studios and on location in West Germany including scenes shot at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. The film's sets were designed by the art director Maurice Carter.
In the years immediately after World War II, a Dutchman, ex resistance, is sentenced to life imprisonment for a murder, committed during a robbery, that he confessed to but did not commit. After discovering that the girl he has loved since childhood is not dead, as he had been told, he escapes from prison and goes on the run through a devastated Germany in search of the witnesses who can clear him, with her help. But the witnesses begin to die apparently accidental deaths shortly before he finds them...
The New York Times wrote, "the sum and substance of this production...is a great deal of panting exercise within and all over two cities, offering little about which to care"[2] whereas TV Guide found it "quite suspenseful, with Bogarde turning in an exceptionally fine performance."[3]