The Boy and the Bridge is a charming, haunting, oddity of a film, almost as much a tourist information film of Tower Bridge and the area of London in that vicinity as it is a story of the naïve innocence that childhood was in the fifties.
Lovingly filmed, the travelogue part is now, in many respects, an historical document, showing in some detail a comparatively small area of London as it was around 50 years ago.
It is something of a rarity for the star of a film to be a boy aged around 11 but this is the case here. Young Tommy Doyle, very well played by Ian Maclaine in his only acting role mentioned in this site, lives with his father, a stereotypical, hard drinking, heart-of-gold Irishman played by Liam Redmond. As a result of a drunken fracas, a grandfather clock gets "smashed in the face" by the father and when, the following day, he is sought by the police, young Tommy puts two and two together and believes his father has killed a man.
Shame over what his father has done and fear of being taken into custody cause Tommy to go on the run and by fortune he finds access to Tower Bridge where he manages to set up home in a disused room in one of the towers. Befriended only by Sammy the Seagull, he goes about the task of setting up home and fending for himself. There are many shots of the behind-the-scenes workings of the bridge which are as interesting now as when filmed.
For the first half of the film there is minimal dialogue, indeed Tommy, who had been on screen for most of the time, doesn't say a word. One of the joys of The Boy and the Bridge is a musical score of considerable charm and invention by Malcolm Arnold and, by virtue of the lack of dialogue he has more time than is usual in movies to develop his ideas. In Whistle Down the Wind, another film dealing with childhood perceptions, Arnold lightened proceedings by the use of a tuneful and lilting score and he was able to do the same for The Boy and the Bridge.
That other reviewers are recalling this film from decades earlier is ample testimony both to the haunting quality of this movie and its rarity. It is high time it received the recognition and circulation it deserves.
Update May 2017. This film is now available to view from the BFI. Googling 'BFI Boy and the Bridge' will get you there.
Further update May 2023. There is a fascinating major article on this movie (and others scored by Malcolm Arnold) in a new book "The Film Music of Malcolm Arnold" by Alan Poulton and David Dunstan and published by The Malcolm Arnold Society ISBN 9798781218080.
