Robbie (Jon Whiteley), an orphaned 6-year-old boy in care, escapes into the London streets and takes shelter in a derelict bomb site, where he stumbles across Chris Lloyd (Dirk Bogarde) and the body of a man Lloyd has just killed. Aware that Robbie is the only witness to his crime, Lloyd realises that he will have to get out of London and that he has no option but to take the boy with him.
Yes, it's another children-and-bombsites film for my collection.
Hunted was released in 1952. It's one of Dirk Bogarde's best early films, while Jon Whiteley gives a wonderfully natural performance.
This opening scene is all we see of bombsites in the film, but later on there are some striking industrial landscapes in the Potteries to enjoy.
According to my chronology, by 1952 British cinemas was pretty firmly against the idea that children should play on bombsites - Hue and Cry already seemed a long time ago.
So much so that Jon Whiteley wandered on to a bombsite in two films - Hunted and, from four years later, The Weapon - and got caught up with a killer in both of them.
A clutch of behind-the-scenes photos from Hunted has just appeared on Getty Images, and the one above shows Whiteley and Bogarde on their bombsite.
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