The Secret Place is a 1957 British crime film directed by Clive Donner[1][2] and starring Belinda Lee, Ronald Lewis, and David McCallum.

In a badly bombed district in the East End of London after the second world war, a gang carries out a diamond robbery and an adolescent boy, Freddie Haywood, discovers their loot hidden in his home.

Donner says Davis also disliked the locations feeling they were too ugly; however the director was supported by Rank executive James Archibald.

The East End locations are well chosen and freshly observed; the characters (apart from the two criminals, who seem rather unduly public school) quite convincingly inhabit this world of grey back streets and derelict bomb-sites.

The balance between action sequences (the neatly-staged robbery and the final chase) and character study is well sustained, and Belinda Lee gives her best performance to date.

"[14] The British Film Institute praised the "remarkable debut screenplay by Linette Perry, which manages to intertwine the generic conventions of the heist thriller with a simple, but poetic, moral drama.

In Perry's world the secret places stretch beyond the physical – the record player, gang hideouts and derelict buildings – into the hearts of the young protagonists.