The Intruder is a 1953 British drama film directed by Guy Hamilton and starring Jack Hawkins, George Cole, Dennis Price and Michael Medwin. The film is based on the 1949 novel by Robin Maugham called The Line on Ginger.
Post-war London is the backdrop including Belgravia, Covent Garden market, Loughborough Junction and Dulwich Hospital.
A contemporary critic commented that the film treated the subject "with intelligence, taste, and a feeling for the medium"; he also wrote "Medwin... gives a brilliant study of a good fellow gone wrong".
Plot
Ex-Colonel, now stockbroker, Wolf Merton (Hawkins) returns home one evening to find it being burgled by an armed intruder. Merton recognises the culprit, Ginger Edwards (Medwin), as a former soldier who had fought courageously under his command in a tank regiment during the Second World War. Merton briefly questions Edwards on how he got into a life of crime, but, suspecting Merton has called the police, the burglar makes his escape. Merton sets out to discover why one of his best men became involved in crime after he was de-mobbed. The story unfolds in a sequence of flash-back episodes of events during the war and how they affected, or contrasted with, how each of the main characters fared when they returned to civilian life.
Cast
Jack Hawkins as Wolf Merton
George Cole as John Summers
Dennis Price as Leonard Pirry
Michael Medwin as Ginger Edwards
Duncan Lamont as Donald Cope
Arthur Howard as Bertram Slake
Nicholas Phipps as Captain Fetherstonhaugh
Dora Bryan as Dora Bee
Edward Chapman as Walter Lowden
Susan Shaw as Tina
Harold Lang as Bill
George Baker as Adjutant
Patrick Barr as Inspector Williams
Michael Ripper as Mechanic
Marc Sheldon as Astley
Campbell Singer as War Office Records Sergeant
Peter Martyn as Sentry
Robert A'Dair as Luigi
Richard Wattis as School Master
Gene Anderson as June Maple
David Horne as General
Charles Lamb as Glazier (uncredited) Leonard Sharp as Glazier (uncredited)
Soundtrack
The soundtrack was composed by Francis Chagrin, conducted by Muir Mathieson. He later adapted the music for concert use as the Four Orchestral Episodes.
Video Release
In 2020 Network Distributing Limited produced and released the film on Blu-ray.