Pool of London

After the success of the police drama The Blue Lamp (1949), Basil Dearden and Ealing studios continued in what passed for a realist vein with this tale of merchant seaman Colleano's involvement in a diamond smuggling racket and his subsequent flight when he becomes chief suspect in a murder investigation. Few surprises in the story, but the location work in the bustling Docklands captures a time and place now gone forever. And Earl Cameron's contribution is an early example of a black performer getting a significant leading role in a contemporary British drama.