Innocent Sinners

Just viewed this flick on TCM and was hooked right from the git-go. It's a must see if you ever get the chance. It's a story about the trials a tribulations of a young lady in post war England. She totally totally captivates the viewer. Every review is a positive. You will love it. But whatever happened to the star June Archer?

This is one of those British films of the 1950's that never made much of a stir, and you'd probably be lucky ever to see it now (I've only seen it once, on British TV, many years ago). But don't on any account miss seeing it if you ever get the chance: it's a truly enchanting little film, and it haunts me to this day.

The main character is a rather lonely little girl (something of a misfit, akin to the main character in The Member Of The Wedding), who has nothing to do and nothing remotely beautiful to look at in her slummy neighbourhood in post-war London, so she decides to make a garden for herself in a bombed-out church, using increasingly ingenious methods to get hold of the seeds and gardening tools.

Other characters - especially a couple struggling desperately to keep their business afloat (a tiny Italian restaurant with only about half a dozen tables in it) - help to make it one of the best 'feel-good movies' I've ever seen. The IMDB doesn't credit the actress who plays the main character with a single appearance in any other film, but it's a terrible shame: from what I can remember, she was a real 'natural', very like Hayley Mills in Tiger Bay (another unjustly neglected British film).

This is a fantastic movie that I was lucky to get off of Turner Classic Movies. I will never delete it. The IMDb synopsis does not even begin to do it justice. This the story of intertwined lives in postwar London, of faith, redeemed lives, of resilience, and of decency centered around a cocksure, yet sensitive young teenager. It's a coming-of-age story with an amazing lead actress, June Archer, who is convincing in her innocence and her confidence. She was amazing. If you ever get a chance to see this movie on TCM or find a way to buy it, do so.

I was very young when I saw 'Innocent Sinners'. The story and harmonica music by Larry Adler captured an 11 year old. I sat mesmerised in the front row of the ABC cinema in Eltham High Street, south London. Up to then, I'd had to view (Saturday morning matinées were de rigeur) films from America that had nothing in common with my life or the life of any children I knew. This was my first film view which had raw music to underscore a story. Was this combination of music and film an early example of the art? The story was a British story with children who were post-war survivors of the Blitz. I grow a wild flower in my garden in honour of this film about gardening in the rubble. The flower is Rose Bay Willow Herb or 'Fireweed'. The seeds thrive when burnt. The survivors of the Blitx knew the flower only too well on the bomb sites of post-war London.

In 1958, at the age of eleven, I found myself scurrying to the Regal in Sidcup High Street three times in the same week to watch the same picture. No film had affected me in such a way before, and none has since.

The first day I saw it, I imagine that my mother had grown tired of me under her feet during a long school holiday, and probably gave me enough money for a ticket and choc-ice. When I reached the cinema, and saw the title 'Innocent Sinners', I thought the film must be something to do with religion, and began musing on what else I could do with the shilling and sixpence in my pocket. Indeed, if it had not been for a sudden downpour, I would almost certainly have sought other entertainment and never have seen the film which has been whirring away on the projector in my head ever since. How I wangled my two other completely secret visits that week, I have no idea, but I financed them from a private hoard of pennies I had been accumulating. The plain fact was that I empathised so much with Lovejoy Mason and felt so much part of her world that I could not wait to get back to it. I was holding my breath with her in the chapel when she was about to pilfer the candle money; I was down on my knees with her in the street scooping up the horse droppings....

Now, at the age of 54, I have just read Rumer Godden's wonderful 'An Episode of Sparrows' properly for the first time - a very belated attempt to discover why the film it inspired meant so much to me.

I can only think that the answer lies quite simply in the inspirational character of the irrepressible Lovejoy (played brilliantly by June Archer) and, in particular, the 'freedom' she won for herself. This young girl, against all odds, and through stubborn persistence and street-wise ingenuity, had created what was quite literally her own patch of freedom, her own escape from an often-wretched grown-up world. However, it was not only adults from whom she had to conceal her tiny retreat. It was a patch of potential beauty too, and therefore had to be kept secret from local gangs of marauding boys. In fact, for weeks no one knew or, in the case of her useless mother, cared, about her first little garden's existence. If true freedom is when no one else knows what you are doing, then for a while she certainly achieved this -and, defiantly, right under the noses of all.

And when that initial horticultural effort was discovered and so mindlessly destroyed, Lovejoy's indomitable spirit shone through as she set to work on a bigger, better sanctuary: one, it turned out, that was going to affect the lives of many people. If all this sounds just a bit too serious, it should be added that the film (and novel) was also at times very funny indeed.

Tony Rand, London, May 2001