The closest I’ve gotten so far was the film I saw on Tuesday, Appointment with Crime (1946), in which Hartnell (in his late thirties) gets star billing as a spiv out for revenge against the gang who abandoned him after he had both wrists broken during a smash-and-grab gone wrong. It’s a fairly straightforward little B-movie, though there are some expressionist flourishes during an anesthesia-induced flashback, and the gang leader’s bespectacled right-hand man (Alan Wheatley, another future Who alumnus) is evah so fey. The main appeal is watching a younger, darker-haired First Doctor with a hat and a gat bark lines like, “Get him on the blower!” and pitch woo to a dancehall blonde, though by the time he gets around to kissing her she knows he’s a no-good, lying, murderous rat.
Hartnell is in at least two more movies in the series: Brighton Rock (1947) (script by Grahame Greene, starring Richard Attenborough) and Odd Man Out (1947) (director Carol The Third Man Reed, starring James Mason).
