Pink String and Sealing Wax

Having supplied an elderly female customer with a remedy for flatulence and served as analyst at a murder trial, stern faced pharmacist, Mervyn Johns returns home to impress his holier than thou, never spare the rod brand of ultra muscular Christianity upon his deeply unhappy, largely subservient family.

He perpetuates his oppressive regime by blocking daughter (Jean Ireland)'s ambition to become an opera singer, coercing her towards an unwanted marriage and a mundane future as a piano teacher. Eldest son (Gordon Jackson) is then ridiculed for writing love poems to the girl of his dreams. It's enough to drive the poor bloke to drink.....which it inevitably does! And that's before we even begin to consider his experiments on small animals. All in the name of science, of course. Everything stems from a sense of duty. Not least, rigorous church attendance, whilst bemoaning the fact that sermons are becoming ever shorter. (Sometimes, less is more mate!)

Drinking culture in Brighton 1880's style: Mainly flat capped men supping tankards of ale in a smoky, poky pub. Women prefer a succession of whiskies, with the odd brandy or port for variety. Inebriated landlord, Garry Marsh is a disciple of the hard stuff.....and just when we're all thinking that Johns is the villain for putting the fear of God into his timid family, Marsh's wife, Googie Withers - a piece of work if ever there was one - springs into action, making the formidable pharmacist look positively saintly. Attaching herself to the docile Jackson (amongst a legion of others) she sneakily gains access to some of the more virulent concoctions stored at the pharmacy and a cunning plan to dispose of her big, bald, boozy husband begins to take shape. Whilst on the domestic front there may be seeds of rebellion in the ranks at the Johns household.

With a similar ring to 'Arsenic and Old Lace', Pink String is the familiar title of a movie offering a fascinating vignette of late Victorian life. The extremes of deeply rooted Christian faith, overspilling into moralistic rigidity, starkly contrasting with the consequences of alcohol fuelled lasciviousness. Never quite goth, but set in a still steam driven world. The approaching advances of the next century remain two decades away. The only electricity here is generated entirely by Withers.

The detective plot is never really suspenseful , eminently predictable , and sententious at that ;after the first sequence ,in which Sutton did not spare a thought for the woman he helped send to the gallows,one could expect a more convincing backlash.

Therefore ,the most interesting side is the depiction of a Victorian -era petit bourgeois family ,where the holier-than-thou father rules his son and daughters with a rod of iron .They are not allowed to follow their dreams so it will have serious repercussions on the naive son ,who's denied the woman he loves and finds solace with an adultress ; one scene sums up this fossilized milieu in an admirably succint style: for the Lent ,the girls have to recite some kind of act of contrition !

The stand-out is arguably Googie Withers ,who ,in her last scenes ,literally mesmerizes the viewer ; four years later ,she would blow Gene Tierney off the screen in Dassin's "night and the city" ,not a small feat.

Pink String and Sealing Wax is directed by Robert Hamer and adapted to screen by Diana Morgan from the play written by Roland Pertweee. It stars Mervyn Johns, Googie Withers, Gordon Jackson, Jean Ireland and Sally Ann Howes. Music is by Norman Demuth and cinematography by Stanley Pavey.

The wife of a pub landlord plots to rid herself of her abusive husband - roping in the innocent son of a chemist to achieve her aims.

One can sometimes forget that Ealing Studios was not solely about crafty comedies, it was a production house of many genre splinters. Here they dabble in the realm of the dark period piece, setting it in Victorian England down on the South Coast in Brighton. Essentially it's a straight forward plot line of a potential murderess and the big questions of if she does it and if so will she get away with it - more pertinently, will someone else be taking the fall?

Within this simple plotting though, there's a fascinating group of characters operating out of this part of Brighton - chiefly out of The Dolphin Public House and the local Pharmacy. There's class distinctions which grab the eyes and ears, but mostly it's the everyday actions of the main protagonists that hold court.

Johns (excellent) is the pharmacist and an almost tyrannical husband and father, his treatment of his family in the name of tough love is irritatingly troubling. It's no wonder his kin want to fly the nest in search of happiness. Pub landlord Joe Bond (Gary Marsh) is an abusive drunk, while his wife Pearl (Withers top draw) is a man chaser and as we know, a murderess in waiting.

The support characters are a mixed bunch of barfly gin guzzlers, jack the lads or wannabe singers who fill the air with a shrill din. All of which is cloaked roughly with a melodramatic bleakness that's initially slow to get off the ground, but comes to the fore for dramatic worth come the second period of the story.

This is far from being Hamer on his best form, he would be saving that for Kind Hearts and Coronets 4 years later, but with Withers good value, the period flavours strong and the photography suitably set at moody, this is well worth a peak for genre enthusiasts. 6.5/10

A regrettably subdued film from a first-rate director. He hadn't really got into his stride when he made this. Its studio setting feels as if it were something of a straitjacket for him.

There are compensations, though. There is an excellent leading lady, Googie Withers, who smolders superbly. Mervyn Johns is likewise splendid as a rigid paterfamilias. There a number of imaginatively shot scenes, notably the main act of villainy. And there are a couple of unintentionally hilarious moments, such as when a subplot character sings HOME SWEET HOME to gain the attention of Dame Nellie Melba - no, I'm not making that up.

Ronald Hamer's masterpieces were soon to come: IT ALWAYS RAINS ON Sunday (again with Ms Withers) and KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS.

London Live TV station are currently running a season of Ealing Films and the subject was one produced in 1945, a year from which several notable films were produced.I am a fan of beautiful raven haired film star actresses of the 1940s and in her Victorian tight fitting dress and bustle with black velvet choker. Googie certainly sizzled.Although not a conventional beauty like Jennifer Jones, Hedy Lamarr, Vivien Leigh, Ava Gardner etc, she certainly sizzled as the alluring wife of the drunk pub owner (Garry Marsh).Gordon Jackson had to suppress his natural Scottish accent for a film set in Brighton playing a rather naive role, a bit like he did in "Millions Like Us" (1943).I endorse the sentiments of user comments above and see no point in explaining the plot again.

Mervyn Johns was to step up a few gears when he played Dr.Forrester the Butcher of Ravensbruck, a Nazi Scientist in "Counterblast"(1948).Here he just plays on overbearing, rather tyrannical Victorian father who reminds his wife that under the law at the time, her money and property devolves to him.This was to change by the Married Womens Property Act of 1884.For a connoisseur of 1940s films it was a pleasant surprise that London Live transmitted this film on TV and I awarded it 7/10.