It Always Rains on Sunday

Film Noir defies definition, plenty disagree whether its a movement, genre, style. Perhaps its more usefully conceived as a sensibility, a world view, an attitude. In which case the words pessimism, determinism ie characters lacking choice their lives are predetermined, doom, gloom, the past coming back to affect the present all spring to mind. Its possible to see a cycle of films with remarkably consistent features in terms of visual style emerging in U.S primarily and to a lesser extent the U.K and France in the forties and fifties. While most noir films have a male as the central protagonist, a male who is invariably weak and flawed, a number of these films, such as Mildred Pierce, have a female protagonist. Noir manifested itself differently in Britain, combining with elements of what was to become known as kitchen sink or social realism and frequently concerned with social class.

This film uses the claustrophobic interiors of the terraced house to great effect. The noir style of long shadows, oblique angles, becomes more evident in the final climax, not really needed early on since the interiors work effectively without lighting effects. Melancholia drips through this like the rain of the title, Googie Withers is terrific, her face a mask of dreams, desires pushed away, disappointment etched over her features through her hard make up. How different she is in appearance to the femmes fatales of the U.S movies, bustling round the kitchen in her pinafore, then later on the almost military smartness of her utility dress when she attends Tommy. As a character shes every bit as strong however as her American counterparts. Like Mildred Pierce, she's strong in a domestic setting, when the usual convention for women in noir is to take them out of the domestic, placing them typically as nightclub singers or gangsters molls. In details I ll acknowledge this is on occasions cheesy and dated. Scratch at the surface however and its a fascinating exploration of the social tensions emerging after World War Two. How were people to adjust to life in peacetime? Were they able to return to the rigidly prescribed roles they d had prior to the war? Ealing studios produced a number of films which now can be seen to share many affinities with American Film Noir, this is one of the most interesting and rewarding.

Dynamic British romantic thriller with a cracking script and an outstanding final reel, crammed full of delectable performances from a fine group of character actors. Above the title are the ever-excellent Googie Withers and charismatic Australian hunk John McCullum: they married soon after shooting was over, which certainly goes some way to explaining their on-screen chemistry. With them is dear old Jack Warner, whose folksy old copper in the TV series DIXON OF DOCK GREEN used to irritate me when I was a child, but here he's playing a detective with a bit of grit in him, and it's a pleasure to discover that Mr Warner was perfectly up to the task. Of the supporting cast, Edward Chapman deserves mention for his self-effacing but nevertheless affecting performance as Ms Withers' husband.

There is a certain amount of caricature in the writing (and perhaps in the playing too) of a couple of roles, but on the whole the script succeeds in delineating personalities rather than types, unusual in a film of the period presenting a mainly working- and lower-middle-class milieu, a good deal of it filmed (by the great Douglas Slocombe) on location.

Director Hamer's final reel is a daring chase followed by a strangely affecting coda. The chase is slightly marred by the intrusion of a couple of model shots which the sequence could easily have done without. But it says something about the power of Hamer's vision that he imagined long shots at those points: it was just unfortunate that the only way to achieve them was by using miniatures.

Highly recommended.

A superb study by Ealing studios, of a working class family, in the east end of London, after the 2nd World War. Googie Withers plays a harassed housewife, who during one Sunday lunchtime, discovers that her old boy friend, Tommy Swan, has broken out of jail and is in need of help.Local policeman Jack Warner is given the task of hunting him down. This film gives the viewer a fascinating look at life in England, in the late 1940's and early 50's. Look out for one scene, featuring the milkman, delivering milk, and his horse, walking up the centre of the street, and knowing just when to stop and when to go. Well worth watching.

It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), co-written and directed by Robert Hamer, is a film noir movie set in London's working class East End. The film is dated in many ways--London, two years after the end of WW II, is not the London that we know in the 21st Century. We can still see evidence of bomb damage, rationing still applies, and there's a sense of community where everyone knows everyone else's business. Police and petty criminals engage in banter: Joe runs a lunch wagon where criminals tend to meet. A detective sergeant stops at the wagon for information. Joe: We don't cater to the criminal classes. Detective Sergeant Fothergill: Turned over a new leaf?

Several plot lines run through the film. An escaped convict--scarred after being flogged with a cat-o-nine-tails--turns up at the home of a woman he once loved, and who loved him. Rose Sandigate, played by the talented and beautiful Googie Withers, has since entered into a practical marriage with a man 15 years older than she is. We enter into her life, along with the lives of her two step-daughters, her son, three petty criminals trying to get rid of stolen roller skates, and some Jewish good guys, bad guys, and not-so-bad guys.

The production values aren't great, and the lower class accents sometimes call for subtitles. Nevertheless, the central plot element of an escaped convict, who returns to find that the woman he loves has married while he was in jail, is as compelling now as it was 60 years ago.

Finally, the powerful scene of detectives chasing a man through the train yards in the dark, was surely known to Carol Reed when he directed "The Third Man." Reed's scene, set in the sewers of Vienna, took place miles away from Hamer's London. Even so, in compelling action and suspense, they have a great deal in common.

A rather splendid 1947 b/w film from the Ealing Studios. I find a lot of these films a little too sentimental and the acting a bit too stagey but this is a real surprise. Great dialogue, convincingly conveyed and together with super cinematography combine to make this a truly enjoyable if nostalgic view. The locations are more Camden than the East End, except for glimpses of Whitechapel at the start but no matter, it all looks good and the views of the railway marshalling yard at the end quite stunning. There is a central story but is is intercut with others and the whole thing bounces along nicely. Even the kids are all right and the amusing bits still amusing. Really though this is a very believable view of London's East End just after the war. Bomb sites, rationing and everyone trying to make the most of what they had. Also there was a feeling that the cops and robbers weren't really that different from each other, just on different sides and the important thing was to survive. Well worth a watch.