When Hamer Radshaw, a young man from a North country mill town, commits to help the poverty-stricken workers in his area, he takes as his Excalibur a sword passed down to him by his grandfather from the Battle of Peterloo, where it had been used against workers. As an idealistic champion of the oppressed, he rises to power as a LabourM.P., but is seduced by the trappings of power and finds himself the type of politician he originally despised.
In The New York Times at the time of the 1949 American release, Bosley Crowther commented: "this John and Roy Boulting film has vivid authority and fascination...But, unfortunately, a full comprehension of the principal character in this tale is missed in the broad and extended panorama of his life that is displayed...Mr. Redgrave is glib and photogenic; he acts the 'lost leader' in a handsome style. But he does not bring anything out about him that is not stated arbitrarily";[4]
The Radio Times reviewer David Parkinson has praised Redgrave's "powerhouse performance, with his gradual shedding of heartfelt beliefs as vanity replaces commitment having a chillingly convincing ring. But such is Redgrave's dominance that there's little room for other characters to develop or for any cogent social agenda."[5] According to Allmovie, the film is "sometimes slow-moving", but "is an interesting look into the reasons why the Labor [sic] and the Conservative factions are at loggerheads with each other in Great Britain".[6]
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