The Birthday Present

Although the title and the presence of Tony Britton in the lead suggests a light fifties comedy, 'The Birthday Present' proves a more ruthless version of Hitchcock's 'The Wrong Man' (more ruthless because the protagonist is actually guilty rather than innocent of the crime that got him sent to prison in the first place).

History has taught us that one is judged more by the outcome of one's action than the action itself. (Would they be proposing erecting statues to Emily Davidson in Trafalgar Square had it been the horse rather than Davidson that had been killed?) Similarly, just as conservatives enjoy declaring that a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, so the counter-argument could be that a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested.

Unlike Hitchcock's film we also see the way "Mr.Scott" is transformed into "Scott! 1692!!" and curtly instructed to "say 'Sir' when you speak to a prison officer!!" And the fact that only rich crooks can afford to go to court (in 1957, we learn, his appeal would have cost a prohibitively expensive 300 guineas).