Tread Softly Stranger

The aptly named fictional Yorkshire town of Rawborough looks like a dark and dingy Christmas village in Gordon Parry’s Tread Softly Stranger, a British noir that fully capitalizes on the seductive power of Diana Dors. Broke brothers Johnny Mansell (George Baker) and Dave Mansell (Terence Morgan) both need money fast, so Dave’s sleazy girlfriend Calico (Dors) uses cunning and curves to persuade the brothers to rob the steel mill where Dave works as a clerk. The brothers’ loving-competitive relationship provides the dramatic foundation while Calico, for whom Dave is drowning in debt, provides the beautiful and manipulative serpent that threatens to come between them. Nighttime location shooting near train tracks and industrial yards blends with cramped, dingy interiors to create an oppressive atmosphere in which a frumpy older lady dropping a gangster to the floor feels totally natural.