High and Low

Adapted, unexpectedly, from one of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels (King's Ransom), this emerges as part thriller and part morality play in the manner characteristic of Kurosawa. After bringing off a big financial coup, a tycoon finds that his son has been kidnapped. Prepared to ruin himself to pay the ransom, he realises that his chauffeur's son was abducted by mistake. The first half, set in a single room, echoes Hitchcock's Rope in exploring his moral dilemma while the action takes place off-screen. The second is disconcertingly different in that it focuses excitingly on the police procedures deployed in the hunt for the kidnapper. But the connections, though sometimes overly obvious in appealing to the liberal conscience, span fascinating Dostoevskian depths.