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It Always Rains on Sunday | Robert Hamer | 1947
| ★★★
Happily
married with three step-children to a man 15 years her senior, an East End
woman’s mundane life is suddenly turned upside down by the arrival of her
former lover, an escaped convict seeking temporary refuge. To complicate
matters more, her two teenaged step-daughters’ busy love lives prove a further
distraction, in this finely photographed and memorably performed post-war
melodrama. However, Georges Auric’s score proves somewhat overemphatic and
Hamer’s direction perhaps a little too slick, never really capturing the
appropriate tone for such fascinating material.
Passport to Pimlico | 1949 | ★★★★½
When an
unexploded German bomb is set off by mischievous local kids, the resultant
explosion reveals a trove of Burgundian treasure – a relic of a 15th century (never revoked) royal charter ceding the land to the Duke of Burgundy.
Never ones to look a gift horse in the mouth, the residents quickly declare
themselves Burgundians and begin to take advantage of their lawless new state,
swiftly doing away with rationing and licensing laws and the like. However, the
area soon becomes a spivs’ paradise, forcing the neighbouring British government to fight back with all its
bureaucratic might, in this hugely entertaining, effortlessly rewatchable
Ealing comedy, stuffed with witty dialogue, amusing performances, and memorable
sight gags.
The Galloping Major | 1951 | ★★½
A
horse-fancying pet shop proprietor sets up a syndicate to purchase a popular
racehorse, but accidentally buys a no-hoper instead. However, the
syndicate and he soon discover the horse’s hidden talent for jumping, and decide to
train it (on a budget) for The Grand National. But with just two days left
until the big race, the horse disappears, and with it, or so it would seem, all
of their dreams, in Cornelius’s mildly diverting but generally rather bland
comedy.
Genevieve | 1953 | ★★★★½
At the
climax of the London to Brighton Rally, an alcohol, machismo, and jealousy
fuelled night of increasing tensions leads to two old friends making a £100
wager on whose classic car will make it back to London first the next day, much
to the chagrin of their charming female companions, in Cornelius’s beautifully
nuanced, decidedly tittersome, and really quite delightful look at gently
evolving post-war British attitudes. Wonderful performances abound.
I Am a Camera | 1955 | ★★★½
Against
the backdrop of the rise of Nazism, a “confirmed bachelor” with literary ambitions,
living quietly in Berlin in 1931, forms an unlikely friendship with a vivacious
night club singer – a relationship that soon develops into a kind of sexless
pseudo marriage. However, their wildly differing personalities ensure that it
is not without incident. Eye-catching photography, transporting production
design, and engaging performances (particularly from the outstanding Julie
Harris) combine to decidedly witty and entertaining effect.
