Interesting drama centering on lives of sailors on leave in London. One small-time smuggler (Colleano) inadvertently gets involved in a diamond robbery, while another (Cameron) finds bigotry in the expected places, but friendship in unexpected ones.

A combination crime film and slice-of-life drama might seem unwieldy, but Dearden makes it work, and work well. The diamond caper is well done, while the budding but untenable romance between Shaw and Cameron (his first film) is wonderfully understated. This film is basically a dress rehearsal for Dearden's later Sapphire (1959, also starring Cameron) and his masterful caper film The League of Gentlemen (1960).

Gordon Dines' noirish photography well captures the shell of a great city slowly gathering steam to become a great metropolis once again. Of course the actual Pool itself is long dead as a commercial center, and this is a portrait of a once vibrant shipping center now given over to overpriced condos and restaurants. Not quite a masterpiece, but a well-made film with a thoughful, downbeat ending.