The Mark, daring for its time in handling the matter of recovering sex offenders, is rather tame stuff for today. It's also something that the cops on Special Victims Unit wouldn't buy in a million years.
Mainly because the rate of recidivism among them is very high. Rod Steiger as psychiatrist claims he's 'cured' Stuart Whitman of any lingering desires for pubescent young females, but Detectives Benson and Stabler would never buy it.
The film is a British production with three imported stars. Stuart Whitman is an American who settled in London and did serve a stretch in prison for unlawful imprisonment of a minor. Rod Steiger tried out the brogue he was to use 14 years later in Hennessy as the psychiatrist who works with sex offenders. And Maria Schell from Austria plays a young widow with a child who develops a relationship with Whitman.
Whitman's been placed in a job with Donald Wolfit's firm and he knows about Whitman and why he was in jail. Brenda DaBanzie and Maurice Denham rent Whitman a room and start treating him like surrogate parents. Things really start going well for Whitman, but when he's picked up for questioning in a child sex murder, reporter Donald Houston recognizes him and writes a story. A lot of people then reevaluate their relationship with Whitman.
As for what happens you'll have to see the film for it. It's a well acted drama, Stuart Whitman got an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, but lost to Maximilian Schell, Maria's brother ironically enough for Judgment at Nuremberg. Still it could never be made today, because the audience simply wouldn't buy it.
