The Walking Stick (1970)

A beautiful polio victim is seduced into helping with a robbery.

Director: Eric Till
Cast: David Hemmings, Samantha Eggar, Emlyn Williams, Phyllis Calvert, Ferdy Mayne, Francesca Annis, Bridget Turner, Dudley Sutton, John Woodvine, David Savile, Derek Cox, Harvey Sambrook, Gwen Cherrell, Walter Horsbrugh, Basil Henson, Anthony Nicholls, Nan Munro, Donald Sumpter, David Griffin, Susan Payne

Quiet and shy, ashamed of her leg withered by polio, Deborah Dainton takes refuge in her work as a trusted employee of a posh London auction house. Within weeks, she is a criminal, the linchpin in a jewel heist. How she got there forms the twisted heart of this psychological crime thriller. The answer, of course, is a man: Leigh Hartley, a painter whose real talent may be his ability to manipulate a lonely young woman. He courts Deborah, making her feel whole and desirable. Now he has one favor to ask…and Deborah, despite claustrophobia from her time in an iron lung, hides in a closet so that she can slip out after the auction house’s closing to let her lover enter and steal a fortune in gems. Blending boyish charm with a threat of danger, David Hemmings (Blow-Up) makes a magnetic Leigh. And Roger Greenspun of The New York Times praises Samantha Eggar’s (The Collector) “beautifully restrained and evocative performance” as Deborah.

IMDb

A young woman's highly ordered and structured life is turned upside-down when she meets a handsome stranger at a party. Friendship soon develops into romance and for the first time in her life she is truly happy. This happiness is short lived, however, as little by little she discovers her partner has been lying to her about his past. It is soon revealed that he and his friends have been planning to rob the auction house that she works for and they require her inside knowledge in order to pull off the crime.
~ Kevin Steinhauer

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