During One Night [Night of Passion] ** (1961, Don Borisenko, Susan Hampshire) – Classic Movie Review 13,494

Sidney J Furie’s 1961 British drama film During One Night [Night of Passion] stars Don Borisenko as an American Air Force captain in England in World War Two who sets out on a night of passion and finds Susan Hampshire.

Canadian co-writer/ co-producer/ director Sidney J Furie’s 1961 British drama film During One Night [Night of Passion] stars Don Borisenko and Susan Hampshire.

Susan Hampshire plays an English country girl who helps gentle, well-educated David (Don Borisenko), a Second World War wartime American Air Force captain based in the South of England, overcome his imaginary impotence, in this odd little 60s realist drama.

David doesn’t want to die a virgin before his final flying mission the next day. So he goes AWOL and sets out on a wished-for night of passion, gets drunk in a country pub and meets the landlady’s shy, kind and sympathetic daughter Jean (Susan Hampshire). They hide from the military police in a barn, but their first attempt at love-making fails.

There is sincere work by co-writer/ co-producer /director Furie, while the young Hampshire is very appealing, and is the film’s main attraction. The film has a little quiet charm, but it doesn’t really quite work, at least not fully or properly or well.

Future novelist Jackie Collins appears as ‘Girl’.

It is the last film production of Walton Studios in Walton-on-Thames in Surrey, England. It ran into financing difficulty, ceased trading and was closed permanently in March 1961. Most of its equipment was sold to the Shepperton Studios near by, and some of its 200 employees transferred there. Most of the studio’s buildings were demolished in the early 1960s and the site was sold for building houses. The power generating house, originally built by studio founder Cecil Hepworth and converted into a theatre in 1925, survived. It was known as the Walton Playhouse, then the Cecil Hepworth Playhouse, and is a performing arts venue.

Release date: 1 December 1961.

Budget: £50,000.

It is also known as Night of Passion, a much more commercial title.

Sholom Joseph Furie (born February 28, 1933), known as Sidney J Furie

Susan Hampshire, Lady Kulukundis (born 12 May 1937)

The cast

The cast are Don Borisenko as David, Susan Hampshire as Jean, Sean Sullivan as Major, Joy Webster as prostitute, Graydon Gould as Mike, Tom Busby as Sam, Alan Gibson as Harry, Barbara Ogilvie as mother, Jackie Collins as ‘Girl’, Michael Golden as constable, Roy Stephens as driver, Colin Maitland as gunner, Pamela Barney as nurse, John Bloomfield as MP Sergeant, Sean McCan as MP, Barry McClean as tough.

During One Night, runs 84 minutes, is made by Galaworldfilm Production, is distributed by Gala Film Distributors (UK), is written by Sidney J Furie and Anthony Gibbs, is shot in black and white by Norman Warwick, is produced by Sidney J Furie and Kenneth Rive, and is scored by Bill McGuffie.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,494

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