plays Betty’s landlady, Mrs Evans, in her final movie performance.

Wartime London has an unreal feel, with obvious Pinewood Studio sets rather than location filming and a glitzy falseness to the performances. Director Bernard Rose claimed it was deliberate. He was a former maker of music videos – including Relax for Frankie Goes to Hollywood – and the film does have the feel of an extended pop video, albeit without the music.

The film was based on the actual 1944 case of ‘The Cleft Chin Murder’. 34-year-old London taxi driver Norman Heath (the man with the cleft chin) was shot dead in Hammersmith Broadway by American army paratrooper Karl Hulten, who had gone AWOL from his base in Cambridge and was posing as Ricky Allen.

He was hanged at Pentonville Prison on 8 March 1945 and became the only US serviceman to be executed in Britain during the war.

His 18-year-old girlfriend, Betty, was reprieved from the hangman 48 hours before her scheduled execution and served nine years in prison for her part in the murder. She died in 1984.

Karl Hulten
Kiefer Sutherland
Betty Jones
Emily Lloyd
Mrs Evans
Liz Fraser
Violet Hodge
Alexandra Pigg
George Heath
John Junkin
Morry
Harry Fowler
Lenny Bexley
Keith Allen
Joyce Cook
Patsy Kensit
Mr Cook
John Surman
Mrs Cook
Janet Dale
John
John Dair
Doctor
Stephen Hancock
US Colonel
Hugh Millais
John Wilkins
Gerard Horan
Robert De Mott
Colin Bruce
Inspector Tansill
Ralph Nossek
Inspector Tarr
Roger Ashton-Griffiths
Radio Commentator
John Lahr

Director
Bernard Rose