A Place to Go

Bethnal Green is changing. The row houses are being knocked down to put up high rises, and Michael Sarne's family doesn't know where they're heading. His father has lost his job as a dockworker, his brother's wife has just given birth to their first baby, and Sarne wants to see the world, but there's no money for travel, or much of anything, not even Rita Tushingham, whom he's sort of sweet on. So he and some locals plan to rob the factory he works at.

Basil Dearden's kitchen-sink drama apparently sat on the shelves for two years before release and it's easy to see why. With its depressing air, it hardly seems to presage the go-go 1960s. On the other hand, its anomie in the face of a brave new world that has no place for such people in't cuts a bit close to the bone for its intended audience. A lively performance by Miss Tushingham, a solid one by Doris Hare as Sarne's mother, contribute to the air that there's no satisfactory ending for anyone.