Two Living, One Dead

Two Living, One Dead is a 1961 BritishSwedish existentialist thriller film directed by Anthony Asquith and starring Patrick McGoohan, Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers.

Erik Berger McGoohan is a reticent, socially withdrawn man who has been working foryears in the same Post Office in a Swedish town, not socialising with colleagues and interested only in his wife Helen McKenna and son. In contrast his workmate Andersson Travers is loud and gregarious, seeing himself as the office joker although his treatment of more junior staff sometimes verges on the malicious.A violent holdup heard, but not shown on screen takes place, during which the office supervisor is shot dead and Andersson suffers a head injury which knocks him out and leaves him concussed. Berger meanwhile, entering the office after hearing the commotion and thinking of his family, resists the urge to risk his life by trying to fight back against the raiders, and emerges uninjured from the incident. In the aftermath, he is treated with barely disguised contempt by the police, his employers and the local community in general, who make it clear that they consider his failure to fight back a mark of spineless cowardice. He does not receive the promotion to office supervisor which he was previously in line for on the retirement of his boss instead the job is given to Andersson, who is now being cast in a heroic light. As he becomes increasingly depressed by his ostracism, his relationship with Helen suffers and he feels unable to confide in her. He comes to see himself as the coward everybody is accusing him of being, and even Helen begins to wonder whether he could have acted differently. ........

Source: Wikipedia