When factory worker Tom Curtis (Richard Attenborough), married with two children and another on the way, refuses to support an unofficial strike, he finds himself shunned by his colleagues - and even his best friend. Written and co-produced (with Attenborough) by Bryan Forbes as the first release of his production venture, Beaver Films, The Angry Silence can be seen as a British variant of On the Waterfront (1954). But with its gritty depiction of working-class homes and factory life, there are also shades of the British New Wave ushered in by Karel Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, released later the same year.