Released in late 1939, Brian Desmond Hurst’s On the Night of the Fire (US: The Fugitive) is a dark and dreary film, a perfect reflection of the deep pessimism enervating Europe just weeks after Nazi Germany invaded Poland and launched World War II. The streets are grey and gusty and lonely; the buildings are like hollowed out castles left over from a once glorious era; the crimes result from spontaneous rage and desperation. With a similar premise as Anthony Mann’s Side Street (1950) years later, a financially struggling barber and new father, Will Kobling (Ralph Richardson), stumbles upon an opportunity to steal unattended cash through a factory’s open window, but the police are able to trace the notes to the neighboring draper, Pilleger (Henry Oscar), to whom Kobling’s wife Kit (Diana Wynyard) had owed a large sum. During a confrontation with Pilleger, Kobling impulsively strangles him and flees, sinking further into alienation as both the mob and the authorities begin closing in on him. Mary Clare enthusiastically plays the obnoxious local drunk Lizzie Crane whose eccentric fits and hysterics go ignored until she turns up evidence.