Four years before playing an adorable little boy hunted by police through the streets of London in Val Guest’s The Weapon (1956), Jon Whiteley played an adorable little boy hunted by police through the streets of London in Charles Crichton’s Hunted (US: The Stranger in Between), a superior film that, like some of the greatest noirs, at times packs an emotional punch. Fearing physical punishment from his abusive foster father for accidentally starting a fire, six-year-old Robbie (Whiteley) quite literally bumps into sailor Chris Lloyd (Dirk Bogarde in what he later said was his favorite film role), who has just murdered his wife’s lover in a bombed-out building; in shock and haste (and for reasons never fully explained), Lloyd takes off, dragging along Robbie, who seems pleased to have a runaway companion (but crestfallen because he left his teddy bear behind). The man and boy, both alienated from the world in their own way, form a loving bond while fleeing into the countryside, avoiding capture, and struggling with hunger and the elements. The film is indisputably beautiful, Crichton and team crafting stunning compositions in front of both urban and rural backdrops, mostly at night, the pair clambering up stairs, dropping onto moving trains, trudging across pastures, navigating ledges. (Bogarde tosses the boy around like a rag doll throughout the first half of the film.) The final sequence in the herring fishing village, including an escape attempt guided by sea gulls, is close to perfect.