The Fallen Idol finds innocence and inquisitiveness at odds with corruption, violence, desire, deceit - all the stuff that grown-ups trade in.

The Fallen Idol stands as one of the great films about looking, about perspective, about the way we watch and interpret not just film plots but each other.

As a portrait of the sometime destructiveness of innocence and as a sharp fresco of post-war Britain, this movie is a little masterpiece, an idol that has never fallen.

Although Reed's auteurism has been debated and doubted, The Fallen Idol underscores several recurrent motifs in his career.