The Mark

Jim Fuller, thirty-three, comes out after a three-year sentence for attempting to sexually assault a child and tries to build a life. He finds work, grows close to Ruth, a secretary where he works, and the psychiatrist treating him, Edmund McNally, believes in him. Then a report about a child comes in locally and the police take him in for questioning. Guy Green’s film does not show the offence, and both the crime and the child harmed by it stay almost entirely outside the frame; the narration stands with the man throughout, and that choice is the most disputed thing about the picture. Stuart Whitman was nominated for the best actor Oscar for the part, with Maria Schell and Rod Steiger in support. In 1961 this was a subject mainstream cinema hardly went near, and the film paid for it commercially.