The Tall Headlines (1952)

After their eldest son is hanged for killing his girlfriend in a notorious well publicized murder case, a middle class English family change their name and move away hoping to start a anew but try as they might, the past is always with them. Based on the novel by Audrey Erskine Lindop and directed by Terence Young (WAIT UNTIL DARK). The film is unusual in that the focus is not on the son's crime but the aftermath of the crime and its effect on the family. Since we never see the family before the son's arrest and execution, we're not privy to the earlier family dynamics but it's clear from the instability that occurs afterwards that perhaps the family was partly responsible for producing the monster that committed the crime. The father (Andre Morell) is a bully, the mother (Flora Robson) is weak and possibly an enabler, the sister (Jane Hylton) is a bitch and the youngest son (Michael Denison) is neurotic. By the film's end, it's obvious that the family is morally and ethically corrupt. Yet we're given a ridiculous "happy" ending that seems to pardon them when everything seemed to be pointing to a darker ending. With Mai Zetterling as the innocent victim of the family's venom, Dennis Price, Mervyn Johns and Barbara Blair.