Talking to my dad this weekend about Le Jour Se Leve and The Long Night, (1939 and 1947-both also reviewed) he mentioned about recently finding on DVD a Film Noir with a similar style set-up, leading to me meeting the man upstairs.

View on the film:

Moving towards the boarding house as the opening credits unroll and bellowing score notes fade into the distance, co-writer (with Alun Falconer and Robert Dunbar) / director Don Chaffey & X: The Unknown (1956-also reviewed) cinematographer Gerald Gibbs cut into a brittle, minimalist Film Noir atmosphere which captures the rising heat the man feels as he gets pushed further into the darkest corner of his flat.

Not featuring a single note of a score after the opening credits, and avoiding any use of fades or dissolves, Chaffey brilliantly tightens the screws in real-time on the viewer with jagged tracking shots across the creaking floorboards of the boarding house, towards bruising close-ups behind shattered glass, and ultra-stylized crane shots exploring the crowd gathering outside.

Surrounded by the black canvas of his flat, Richard Attenborough gives a blistering performance as (the as listed in the credits) The Man Upstairs, whose Noir loner psychological torment Attenborough expresses with agony across his face, as Donald Houston gives a pitch-perfect calming performance as Dr. Sanderson, who has to balance trying to talk The Man out of his flat, whilst attempting to convince the police to stand back.

Taking a rather hazy approach to making clear the name of the man, the writers bring from out of the Film Noir shadows an excellent character study, which refreshingly stays away from making him a simple lunatic, to instead take a empathetic position that explores the psychological problems he is suffering, (for which, no easy answer is given) and the compassion Dr. Sanderson has, to help the man upstairs.

The Man Upstairs is too limited and dull, with class actor Attenborough reduced to playing a 6 year old having a tantrum.

Granted it's more about the other residents choosing to weigh in and not just be bystanders. The problem is the majority of the residents are bad characters as well, Mrs Barnes the antithesis.

THE MAN UPSTAIRS is a low-key proto-siege film, very British in feel with some of the angry young man/kitchen sink look and atmosphere to it. With little in the way of scenery and incident, it's very much an actor's showcase, the success or failure resting on the skills of the ensemble cast. Thankfully, they're up to the job, with the likes of Bernard Lee, Donald Houston and Kenneth Griffiths excelling in the various roles they inhabit. The real stand-out is, of course, Richard Attenborough, delivering another internal and sensitive performance as a man driven to the edge by the whims of modern society. In that respect this reminded me a little of the Joel Schumacher film FALLING DOWN, albeit with a much more restrained and old-fashioned approach.