An extremely well executed film with very difficult theme and despite the care and attention, never mind the pre-filming censorship problems, one wonders just who was likely to be the intended audience. Perhaps the answer is in the makers' fight for a certificate less than an 'X' on the grounds that otherwise children would not be able to see it. It seems that the intention was to send out a warning that not all is wonderful in the world and care should be taken when 'strange' men or simply 'strangers' offer incentives for children to disrobe. The film is of necessity disturbing and there seems little chance such a film would even today be made available to 'children', however hypocritical that is. Gwen Watford is excellent and Janina Faye as the 'victim' absolutely spot on in a very difficult role. Brave, literate and very powerful.

It was the title of this film that attracted me to it . " Never take sweets from and a stranger and never talk to strangers and never go away with strangers " was a warning given to children of my generation because strangers were always " bad men " which was a polite euphemism for child molesters . Anyone watching the news in Britain today can't help noticing the number of big name celebrities being arrested for historic child abuse . One wonders what the attitude amongst the public was towards child sex abuse ? It's actually something that's not portrayed in drama very often and perhaps the first time I saw it explicitly referred to in film or television was the opening episode of BLAKES 7 . This forgotten drama by Hammer Films must be close to unique in its subject matter but after seeing NEVER TAKE SWEETS FROM A STRANGER it's easy to understand its obscurity since it's a badly made film on a very important subject There's two themes too the film - paedophiles in the midst and hostility to the outsider . As I said in a previous review Hammer has a running theme in their films of somebody arriving in a town and the new arrival being given the cold shoulder by the locals . This film continues the heme and it's no coincidence the family of protagonists are English moving over to Canada where 9 year old Sally Carter and her Canadian friend are asked to strip naked by Clarence Olderberry Snr and when Sally's parents make a complaint to the police the locals close ranks There's zero subtly and zero ambiguity to the film . From the outset the fact that Olderberry is signposted with luminous flags . He watches the two girls through his binoculars and and it's almost like watching a paedophile version of Benny Hill as he shakes and gets flustered . Honestly I expected steam to come out of his ears . After Sally tells her mother that Olderberry asked her and her friend to dance around naked she goes to the police and the policeman in charge starts criticising the mother " for letting your daughter go to the home of someone like that " then the policeman realising what he's said and assuring her he meant strangers not wanting to be bothered by children . It's pretty clear that the police have their suspicions but won't do anything because ... well the Olderberry's built the town . I know things are different nowadays where the shoe is on the other foot and anyone accused of being a paedophile is in danger of a witch hunt - i'm sure we've heard that story a bunch of vigilantes lynched a filing cabinet because they confused it with a paedophile - but do we honestly believe the mounties would ignore an open secret about a child molester simply because he's rich and well connected ? The film also suffers from some outstandingly bad dialogue which feels fundamentally wrong . After hearing from Sally what has happened where she was told to strip naked for which Olderberry gave her sweeties Mrs Carter relates Sally's story and finishes with " The candies weren't very nice " !!!! Let me get this straight :If the candy was nicer would that make it all right ? On a similar theme during the court case Sally says she didn't like Olderberry because he was old and scary and the defence attorney asks " Would you have liked him if he was young and handsome ? " The dialogue feels wrong as does the entire film as to the points it's making . The English newcomers are good because not only are they victims they're English and the locals are bad because they're bad and not English I don't think I've seen a film that has come up with a couple of better themes that instantly blows it on almost every level . That said because of its subject matter it possibly does deserve a wider audience and become slightly better known . That said I doubt if it'll be popular in Canada and quite right too . If the local characters in this movie were called Goldberg , Silversmith and Rubinstein you'd think you were watching a remake of THE ETERNAL JEW

Vastly under-rated (no doubt due to it's lack of release and being regarded as just another Hammer Horror) it is yet another offering from that studio that shows just what crafted film-makers the team from Bray studios actually were.Director Cyril Frankel extracts first-rate performances from the leading performers, with Janina Faye worthy of special mention as the key victim in the saga.Production values are the usual high standard from the Hammer team of the late 50's - Early 60's, Bernard Robinson's production design triumphant transforming Pinewood's Black Park locations into a small Canadian town. Freddie Francis does his sterling filter work yet again, adding menace to the lakeside finale and offering more in monochrome than could have been achieved in colour.Considerably superior to most films that broach the subject matter and (although the copy I have seen is no better than average quality) it is hoped that the upcoming DVD release will restore the widescreen ratio thus allowing us to see it as it was intended.

This was one of the most controversial films of its time, I remember vividly the the bad press this movie got,but what we have here is now so relevant to today's society and Hammer should ensure this is restored and put on DVD, I managed to track a copy down from the US where it had been on television, the owner of the disc can be found on a very well known auction site, to my knowledge this has never been shown on British TV.Starring veteran and distinguished theatre actor Aylmer, who does not breath one word in the movie by the way is accused by a young girl of being a child molester and is taken to court by the girl's father Patrick Holt, sadly Aylmer is the town's big-wig and is a much respected professor as well as owning most of the land in the town, the case against him is thrown out due to lack of evidence from the young girl.What follows is a harrowing chase scene involving the same girl and her friend from school both chased through the woods by a psychopathic Aylmer and ultimately leads to death of one of the girls before he is caught.Curiously set in Canada with an uneasy blend of stiff British upper lip and north American accents, talky in parts but stick with it to the end where the final scene's are shattering and every parent's nightmare, this movie should be seen by all.