T. Dan Smith

Resembling Evelyn Waugh facially and perhaps Huey 'Kingfish' Long historically, T Dan Smith proves a mesmerising speaker in this documentary by the Amber Films collective. Was he the fall-guy for the Establishment in the Poulson Affair, imprisoned to save Home Secretary Reginald Maudling's neck, or was he a Trot idealist who dreamed of transforming Newcastle into the Milan of the North, infiltrated the system, but surrendered his soul in the process? That face doesn't give much clue, and the linking investigatory journalists confess themselves no wiser by the end. A compilation of newsreel, interview and dramatic reconstruction, the film is sometimes clumsy, but the facts are strong enough to tether the viewer. Unfair immunity at the top seems to be the commercial.