Very well executed

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This is an entertaining thriller despite its dated-ness. The efforts to rescue a trapped boy make for edge-of-your-seat drama. The story covers every angle from frazzled nerves as time expires to anguished self-recriminations when there is nothing for some of the characters to do but wait. All of this is predictable yet compelling. Mr. Dawson, the vault expert, reminds me of Mr. Wolf in "Pulp Fiction" in that he's the guy who finally comes in and lays out what they have to do to solve the problem and rescue the boy. He has a straight forward but labor intensive plan and directs everybody to get it done.As a bonus, we get to see Sean Connery in a pre-fame bit part. He is cast as Welder #1 (although his boss calls him "Bill" at one point) and is the only character who has a British Isles accent, even though he is not the only cast member who seems to be British. Indeed, the production is interesting in that while this movie seems to have been made in the UK, it is based on a television play that was originally done on Canadian TV. The cast is international in that it includes British, Irish, Canadian and American actors. (It is a sad note that Irish actor Victor Wood, who plays Mr. Zeeder, died less than a year after this movie's release.)The dated portrayal of technical details is telling. For example, Welder #2 gets hit in the face with hot metal because he is not wearing a welder's mask. I can understand that maybe they are careless because they are hurrying to rescue a trapped child, and it looks as if, even then, they know better because once this accident happens the boss tells Connery's character to go get a mask before taking over the job.I think I might be able to solve the mystery of the cloth over the registration numbers of the helicopter. (See Goofs.) The movie is set in Canada but was filmed in the UK. Aircraft registration numbers include a letter that designates the country. The filmmakers did not want to show a British helicopter flying over Canada.The medical anomalies got to me particularly when the two doctors finally have access to the unconscious victim. They wait until he is taken out to the ambulance before they do anything to check his vitals let alone try to resuscitate him. Today, EMTs and doctors would immediately start working on the patient as soon as they got their hands on him. Way too slow. (I once asked a retired nurse when she first heard of "ABC", the emergency medicine acronym for prompting immediate attention to "airways, breathing, and circulation", and she said it wasn't until the late '60s, so maybe doctors really were slower to do things in 1957, which would have made them lose a lot more patients than they would a decade later. Worse, back in the 1950s and maybe even into the 1960s, ambulance drivers were often not certified EMTs! I don't recall encountering EMTs until the '70s.)On some personal notes: This movie was released in late summer 1957 and the boy in the story says that he has just turned six that day (though the actor is actually closer to ten). I myself turned six in September 1957, so I might have identified more with the boy if I had thought about that while watching, but it didn't occur to me until after the film ended.Victor Winter, who plays the boy, was Scottish and a successful child actor as well as an assistant director and production manager in adulthood. He worked on a film where I was an extra in the early 1980s, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", although he worked in Macau, China whereas I worked in California, USA.

TIME LOCK is a decent little thriller made by the British team of Gerald Thomas and Peter Rogers before they became almost exclusively linked to the Carry On series of films. This is an adroit B-picture with a short running time and fast pace. The story is a simple one but keeps you gripped thanks to the solid writing and suspense inherent in the premise.The tale is set in Canada for no good reason and involves a kid accidentally being locked in a bank vault with a time lock which means it can't be opened until after the weekend. Unfortunately, the boy has only 10 hours of air left inside the vault. The rest of the story chronicles the efforts of those outside to rescue him, and involves the usual engineering problems and races against time.I like the fact that this film is grounded in reality and thus feels realistic throughout. There isn't one lead actor of sorts but those at the forefront put in solid and believable turns, like Robert Beatty as the no-nonsense rescuer and Lee Patterson as the distraught father. Sean Connery notably features in support as one of the workmen and doesn't have much dialogue but hangs around in the background a lot. TIME LOCK is no classic and was never meant to be, but for a B-feature it does its job nicely.

Although the plot feels rather forced and awfully predictable, this is a surprisingly quite intense film that is able to keep one always interested all the time, due to the presentation of all the scientific evidence in an interesting manner, as well as an appropriately short running time. It feels well researched, the music used is applied well, and for Sean Connery fans it has the bonus of his presence in a brief supporting role as a welder. Still, the film does have quite a tendency for unnecessary melodrama; in particular McDowall overacts whenever she is on screen. But in spite of the film's flaws, the overall picture stands strong, and while it might not be everyone's cup of tea, I would highly recommend it if the film has even the slightest appeal to one's taste.

This is actually a pretty good thriller that benefits from the no-nonsense, fact-based dialogue and avoids sentimentality for the most part. Technically it's nothing remarkable and yes, the actors are largely undistinguished, but the story is developed in a pleasing and suspenseful way. Another reviewer's remark on this page that the film doesn't work because the child is unappealing is somewhat bizarre. The kid is on screen for all of two minutes and has but a few words of dialogue. And he's actually a cute little fella too, making you root for his rescue.In summary then, this is a movie which had the likes of Hitchcock or another of the greats directed it, have been a classic. Instead it's an enjoyable way to spend an hour and a bit in front of the telly - especially if you, say, find yourself off work ill one afternoon.