It Happened in Soho

While postwar cinema audiences were lapping up the escapism from the cramped reality of postwar austerity Britain provided by Herbert Wilcox's "London Films" with titles like 'Maytime in Mayfair' (and even the murder mysteries routinely showed people living in huge country houses), tabloid movies like 'It Happened in Soho' were serving as the id to Wilcox's ego, nonchalantly depicting Soho as a thrillingly sinful den of vice, with an ethnically diverse population even before the arrival of the Windrush.

At only 55 minutes, you're only just getting settled in when the murderer (who would now be identified as a serial killer) has already been revealed and apprehended.

Some one is strangling pretty women in Soho. Reporter Richard Murdoch is covering the case, when he isn't chatting up new-to-the-city Patricia Raine in Paul Demel's diner, where all sorts meet.

It's a very poorly written mystery, with a very obviously cheap shoot, since most of it is set in the diner, and little effort is made to advance either the murder mystery, nor the social lives of the actors. Director-producer-presenter Frank Chisnell keeps things simple and obvious, although there is one interesting sequence of portrait photography by the unnamed DP, meant to represent the varied types of people one meets in the London neighborhood.

The action mainly takes place in Angelo's coffee bar in Soho, a place of bentwood chairs and red checked tablecloths, spivs, teenage delinquents, a wise fatherly policeman, prostitutes (some retired), a medical student turned artist and a newspaperman - Bill Scott, played by Richard Murdoch (future partner of Kenneth Horne and voicer of the Moomins).

One night at about three in the morning, while Scott is on the trail of a local strangler, a nice young girl, Susan, wanders in. She's been at a party, and then got taken on to a dubious club by a boyfriend. She didn't think much of it and left, but now finds herself stuck in Soho. Back then there was no transport at night, and it would be too late for a hotel, but there were such things as all-night cafes.

Susan is welcomed by Bill Scott and Simon, the artist. After an initial quarrel, she also chums up with the prostitute, Julie, who offers her a bed for the night. Bill says he'll take her with him on the following night's search for clues.

They go on a tour of a multi-ethnic Soho where everybody mucks in, and dances despite the venue's lack of a licence. Stolen goods change hands, and a Marxist explains that "what's mine is mine and what's yours in mine." "What a twerp!" observes his victim.

Of course there's another murder, and it all starts to get rather close to home...

A lovely film. But as Julie says, "You have to know when to get out of Soho." Still true!

"It Happened in Soho" (1948) stars Richard Murdoch, Henry Oscar, Patricia Raine, Paul Demel, John Bailey, Eunice Gayson, and others. This grade Z film, even though it is such, is still otherwise very interesting, but it's SO badly made! Whoever edited this - well, didn't! The director was asleep MOST of the time, but not all the time. The actors do what they can with the material - which isn't necessarily bad. It's the way it's put together. And that music... What was someone thinking? Oh, that's right, they weren't.

Yes, this takes place in Soho. Soho in 1948 was a rough place. For its time, very rough. You'd barely know it based on the film. The action...I'll use the word loosely...takes place almost entirely in a café run by Paul Demel, an immigrant from somewhere based on his accent. Many of the patrons are prostitutes or former ones. Some are pretty and some are much more than just a little faded. Then there's the artist/caricaturist. He's a former medical student/dropout, or so he says, John Bailey... The main character is Richard Murdoch, an optimistic cynic, whose demeanor throughout just...doesn't...really...fit the character as written. He's very good, but I'd have chosen someone more like the American actor Dana Andrews. Instead, the character Murdoch plays is more like a very serious Herbert Anderson who played Dennis the Menace's father in the 1950s/60s television series. He even looks a tad like him. The main female of the piece is Patricia Raine. She just drops out of the sky into this Soho café in the middle of the night from a date with someone she had to get away from - and she's from the country - and ends up in the picture for the rest of it, staying with Eunice Gayson, probably a prostitute, as though this kind of thing happens every second of the day. Gayson offers her the place to stay, food on the house, just stay and make yourself at home... Uh, huh...

Two murders occur. It even looks as if Murdoch may be the murderer at a crucial moment. Is he? Well, if you can stand it, watch. You'll enjoy seeing Soho in '48, I'll grant you that. HOWEVER, be warned that most of the shots outside showing the tours of Soho - which are eccentrically edited into this film! - are done at night with lighting that is so dim you can barely see the scene!! It wasn't my DVD; that's the way it's shot. Just for charity, I'll give this one 4 stars out of 10. It's a 1 star film, but it has potential that just wasn't realized with the finished product. The potential's so good that it makes it worth the watch for some. Are you one of those?

This is a very low budget bottom of the bill film.Any exterior shots are virtually unwatchable because they are too dark.Either the director of photography had the wrong camera aperture or they couldn't afford lighting.The acting is truly appalling,not least Richard MurdochThe fight scene resembles nervo and Knox's slow motion wrestling sketch.Ironically the real Soho could be a very nasty and violent place at the time.It is a really poor crime film with no merit.