Silent Dust

Silent Dust is a 1949 British dramathriller film, directed by Lance Comfort and starring Sally Gray, Stephen Murray, Derek Farr and Nigel Patrick. The title comes from lines in Thomas Grays Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Can Honours voice provoke the silent dust, or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death? The screenplay was by Michael Pertwee, adapted from his own play The Paragon. The film was shot in film noir style with dramatic use of light and shadow.

Simon Rawley is reported killed in the last days of World War II, and his blind father Robert Murray decides to build a sports pavilion in his memory in the local village. His neighbour Lord Clandon Seymour Hicks urges him to dedicate it to all the local men who gave their lives in the war, but Robert refuses. Planning and construction take some time and three years pass, during which Simons widow Angela Gray falls in love with local doctors son Maxwell Oliver Derek Farr whilst they have both been posted to Occupied Germany after the war. Robert cannot help feeling that this is disloyal to his dead son, but his second wife Joan Campbell does her best to convince him that Angela is entitled to search for happiness again. The pavilion is finally completed and plans are in place for the grand dedication and opening. The local police are meanwhile looking for a villain who coshed a motorist and stole his car in London, and has dumped the car in the vicinity.Robert surprises an intruder in the house that evening. He is closely followed by Angela, who to her great shock recognises her dead husband Simon Patrick. He signals to her not to let Robert know his identity. Later he comes up with elaborate excuses to Angela to explain his resurrection and lack of contact since the war, but she soon sees through the lies. It is subsequently revealed that, far from dying a heros death on the battlefield, Simon was a deserter who faked his own death. Since the war he has been making a living on the wrong side of the law as a blackmarketeering spiv. Now down on his luck, he has returned in the stolen car to try to extort money. ........

Source: Wikipedia