Miniatures!It Always Rains on Sunday (Robert Hamer, 1947)
The first fifteen minutes and last fifteen minutes are wonderful noir, marked by an appropriate appreciation of rain on cobblestone streets on window panes. The chase that culminates at the railroad yard is classic, perhaps anticipating
The Third Man by a couple years, despite
Variety's comic description of it as "lengthy" and "unnecessary."
In between those bookends is a slice-of-life, street scene drama set in the East End of London after the war, a forerunner to the kitchen sink dramas of a decade later. Compared to the excitement of the noir film that seemed promised, these scenes seem rather middling — and a bit of slumming (
"I want to sleep with common people") from an industry dominated by stories of the upper class with occasional quaint glimpses of the lower. Pretty bleak and claustrophobic, with everyone on the make.
The cast is mostly good, with Googie Withers' anchoring the story despite having maybe the most thankless role. I don't really remember her from the few other films I've seen; I'll have to take note when I finally get around to
One of Our Aircraft Is Missing. She has good on-screen sizzle with John McCallum, something which mirrored their off-screen life. Susan Shaw is radiant as the sluttish step-daughter, and Patricia Plunkett is equally good as her more responsible sister.
It Always Rains on Sunday is currently the
highest rated film noir on IMDb with less than a thousand votes (958).
Grade: B
Up next:
Moonrisepixote