Joan Dowling

Everything changes for two sailors on shore leave when they inadvertently become caught up in a crime as murky as the great river itself. For one of them, Johnny, life is further complicated when he falls in love with Pat, a local ticket seller, forming one of the first interracial relationships in British film.

Vivianne is a young woman ostracised when her boyfriend is arrested for murder, and is forced to rent a room in a decrepit boarding house for unmarried mothers ran by "Nellie" Alistair, a ruthless woman with sinister motives, who takes pleasure exploiting her vulnerable tenants.