Bryan Forbes' second directorial feature was in sharp contrast to the lighter-toned "Whistle Down The Wind" from the year before. At times a sombre mood-piece, it nevertheless is a sensitive character study of the struggling tenants at a cheap Notting Hill (before it was Notting Hill!) boarding-house to which Leslie Caron's Jane character winds her weary way at the outset.
A 27 year old single French woman, she's pregnant and on her own after her first sexual encounter with an English actor who, like her parents, has recently rejected and abandoned her. Now friendless, she's down at the end of lonely street at this seeming heartbreak hotel where under the bawdy, boozy landlady's charge live a disparate and desperate set of individuals. These comprise a young black jazz musician, a handsome, young, white out-of-work writer, a nosey, fading old white lesbian actress and down in the basement, an old prostitute and her young Hungarian protege, the latter learning the dopes you might say.
After much pressing, Caron eventually, if reluctantly enters into a relationship with Tom Bell's possessive writer which seems to upset the musician next door who possibly has feelings for either one of them. However, once he learns of the pregnancy, Bell quickly drops her, leaving her to seek friendship at each of the other doors in the establishment. As Caron puts it herself, everyone it seems wants her to have an abortion but apart from one major wobble, she's determined to have the child.
It all winds up at a Christmas party for all the tenants in the landlady's front room (Bell excepted) and a nicely written (literally) bitter-sweet conclusion as Caron has to face up to her far from certain future.
Excellently filmed and played by all, this was a fine example of the early 60's kitchen-sink drama prevalent in U.K. cinema at the time. The situations, characterisations, sets and dialogue are credible and natural and shot and played in a convincingly realistic manner. Caron, previously only known to me from big-budget Hollywood movies from her youth is something of a revelation as the alien presence trying to cope with her further alienation all on her own. Bell, too, I was impressed with as the wounded, loquacious charmer unable at the key moment to man-up as today's phrase goes and do the decent thing for someone he clearly loves. All the other supporting characters, played by Brock Peters, Cicely Courtneidge, Avis Bunnage and a pre-Elsie Tanner Pat Phoenix likewise turn in strong performances making this a strong ensemble piece.
Honest, straightforward and moving, this is one of the best movies of its type I've yet seen, the better for focusing on a female character at its bruised, shifting, but always beating heart.
