Cold and vicious Tony and his more pleasant-natured but easily influenced partner-in-crime Frank hatch a plan to rob bookmaker Joe Carter of his takings as he leaves the local dog track.

They manage to free the case after Tony administers another severe beating to Joe, and decide to get rid of him by dousing him in alcohol and dumping him near the local hospital, where they assume a passer-by will find him and think he has suffered a drunken fall.

After Tony tricks Frank into reversing the car over Carter's still-living body upon leaving in order to blame him for the death, and exonerate himself from a capital crime, they drive through the night heading for Birmingham.

[4] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The taut plot stays on course, unfolding for the most part on broad municipal highways and narrow back streets at night, the shadows cast by the roadside lights accentuating the macabre, especially in the Mabuse-like finale.

Previously, the suspense is a shade overstretched: as the two boys cruise around in their victim's car trying to rid themselves of the body in the back, some of the nerve-wracking crises – flat tyre, helpful A.A. man, inquisitive policeman – are less credible than others.

The picture, apart from the actual hold-up and a couple of sequences in Frank's home, unfolds on broad municipal highways during the night and the shadows cast by the electric lights artfully accentuate the macabre.

Derren Nesbitt thoroughly convinces as the brash, brutal and callous Tony, Keith Faulkner is an effective foil as the easily led Frank, Carol White has her moments as the frightened Jean, and Harry Locke is eloquently mute as the unfortunate Carter.