Four working-class British teenage lads – Stan Coulter (Dudley Sutton), Barney Lee (Jess Conrad), Ginger Thompson (Tony Garnett) and Billy Herne (Roland Lacey) – are accused of robbing a garage and killing its elderly night watchman.
During their murder trial, a number of witnesses – and the four accused – relate their contradictory versions of events of the fateful night leading up to the fatal stabbing and the story unfolds through a series of flashbacks.
The witnesses include Roy Kinnear as a bus conductor who sees the boys knock an elderly lady over at the bus stop before they get on, Wilfrid Brambell as a toilet attendant who has an altercation with the lads and tries to throw them out, Colin Gordon as a cinema patron who has a trick played on him by Billy after which they have an argument, Carol White as a girl they pick up in a pub and finally Mavis Villiers as a pub landlady who appears to overhear the four having a recce at the petrol station and planning the robbery.
Robert Morley gives a commanding and charismatic performance as Montgomery, the defence counsel for the boys.
Stan Coulter
Dudley Sutton Billy Herne
Ronald Lacey Ginger Thompson
Tony Garnett Barney Lee
Jess Conrad Montgomery
Robert Morley Victor Webster
Richard Todd Judge
Felix Aylmer Robert Brewer
Wilfrid Brambell Gordon Lonsdale
Colin Gordon George Tanner
Kenneth J. Warren Randolph St. John
Allan Cuthbertson Mr Coulter
Wensley Pithey Mark Salmon
Roy Kinnear Mr Lee
Patrick Magee Mr Herne
David Lodge Celia Barker
Mavis Villiers Mrs Herne
Betty Marsden Patmore
Laurence Hardy Samuel Wallace
Charles Morgan Evelyn May
Carol White Crowhurst
Patrick Newell Mrs Lee
Rita Webb Morris
Tom Chatto Caldwell
Harold Scott Mr Champneys
George Moon Mrs Thompson
Hilda Fenemore Inspector Larner
Lloyd Lamble
Judge
