Out In The 1950s Brit Noir Night- Bond Of Fear- A Film Review
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Bond of Fear, starring Dermot Walsh, Jane Barrett, John Colinos, directed by Henry Cass, 1956
No question, if only based on the work of the late Sir Alfred Hitchcock, that the British film industry had the thriller genre down pat. The more generic film noir scene though, as witnessed in the film under review, Henry Cass’s Bond of Fear, is more problematic. It is not that the film lacked merit but it certainly did not grip the way a noir should and the way that the plot-line could have been used to create a more successful effort.
Like a lot of families in America in the 1950s, the rising middle class families anyway, the British up and coming middle class families sought vacation times out of the cities. Of course the 1950s were the golden age of dragging the family out on vacation on the cheap, relative cheap, via the trailer (called a caravan in Britain) and that travelling device is central to the action here.
A hard-working father (played by Dermot Walsh) and a stay at home Mom (played by Jane Barrett) decide to travel by caravan (remember that’s a trailer) to France with their young son and daughter to see the sights and bond as a family. Problem is that as fate would have it there was a stone- cold killer (played by Johns Colinos) on the loose in the neighborhood who sought refuge in that very caravan in order to escape to parts unknown. When the young son discovers the killer in the caravan all hell breaks loose as the son is taken hostage by the killer to insure that Pa does his bidding.
After a series of almost comic antics concerning avoiding police dragnets, feigning child sickness, caravan break-down, etc. there is a final showdown between Pa and the killer for the life of his son at the Dover ship crossing. Naturally Pa bests the killer, the son gains new-found respect for Pa and the family will go off on their merry way-bonded against fear. And all of this good feeling stuff, the antics, the musical score backing up the action, and being hard-pressed to hate the villain who just seems to be one of those misunderstood boy popular in the 1950s in America and England is what does this one in as noir. Sorry 
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