An unlikely kind of friendship develops between Fergus, an Irish Republican Army volunteer, and Jody, a kidnapped British soldier lured into an IRA trap by another IRA member. When the hostage-taking ends up going horribly wrong, Fergus escapes and heads to London, where he seeks out Jody's lover, a hairdresser named Dil. Fergus changes his name and gets a job as a day laborer. He starts seeing Dil, who knows nothing about Fergus' real background....

"Taking place largely over the course of one tense night, Carol Reed's psychological noir, set in an unnamed Belfast, stars James Mason as Johnny McQueen, a revolutionary ex-con leading a robbery that goes horribly wrong. Injured and hunted by the police, he seeks refuge throughout the city, while the woman he loves (Kathleen Ryan) searches for him among the shadows"--Container.