The October Man (1947)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The October Man (1947) – R. W. Baker

In this dark British noir, John Mills (not far from his excellent turn as Pip in David Lean’s Great Expectations) plays Jim Ackland, an industrial chemist recovering from a terrible road accident in which a young girl he was babysitting was killed.  A year later, released from the sanatorium, he is wracked with grief (and often suicidal) but trying hard to make a go of it in a new job while living at a boarding house/hotel in suburban London. He keeps his distance from the other tenants but is friendly with his next door neighbour Kay Walsh who turns up murdered.  Suspicion lands on Mills after other tenants (falsely) claim he spent many nights in Walsh’s apartment – his head injury and time in the sanatorium are held against him by the police (stigma of mental illness).  With his new girlfriend Joan Greenwood, he struggles to clear his name while also experience doubt and depression.  A good deal of time is spent on character development (a good thing, if sombre) before we are whisked into a more traditional suspense-thriller plot once the real facts of the case are revealed.