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13 out of 13 people found the following review useful: Atmospheric, 8 August 1999 Author: Marc Maitland (mait001@aol.com) from London
This film portrays the post-war East End atmosphere like few other films. Its characters appear to be typical East End characters - the frustrated housewife, adventurous schoolboy, local spiv, small-time gangsters, Jack Warner as the archetypical detective, patrician father-figure - just a few of the memorable characters whose lives intertwine on a bleak, rainy Sunday afternoon in London. There is more to these characters than meets the eye, as the plot unravels.A note on the music: a cheery theme that is repeated throughout the film, as the setting returns to the Sandigates' terraced house, apparently called "Theme without Words": as so often with Ealing films, it adds to the setting a very fitting background.
11 out of 11 people found the following review useful: British Crime Drama that Deserves to be Better Remembered, 7 September 2005 Author: James Hitchcock from Tunbridge Wells, England
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Ealing Studios were, of course, best known for comedies, and Robert Hamer was possibly best known as the director one of the best of those, "Kind Hearts and Coronets". "It Always Rains on Sunday", however, is not a comedy but a crime drama, an example of the studio's more serious output. The action is set in Bethnal Green, a working class district of East London, in the years following the end of the Second World War. (In the forties the British cinema, which had hitherto concentrated on the lives of the well-to-do, began to make more films about working class life, foreshadowing the "kitchen sink realism" of the late fifties and sixties). Tommy Swann, an armed robber, escapes from Dartmoor Prison and makes his way back to London where he hides in the home of his former fiancée, Rose Sandigate, hoping to escape abroad by stowing away on a ship. Although Rose is now married to another man, she still loves Tommy and shelters him in the house.In visual terms the film, with its strong contrasts of light and dark and its frequent shots of rain-swept streets, seems to have been influenced by the contemporary American film noir style. (Hamer was obviously keen on the rainy look- so keen, in fact, that we sometimes see rain, presumably courtesy of a hosepipe, falling from bright sunlit skies). This is particularly apparent during the gripping chase scenes near the end, when Swann attempts to hide from the police in a railway marshalling yard. In terms of content, however, the film differs from most films noirs, which normally had at their centre a single strong male character, who could be on either the wrong or the right side of the law but was generally a loner. Swann might fit that description, but the film is not really about him but about Rose and her family, and also about the wider community of which they are a part.There are some memorable characters, both within the Sandigate family and without. Besides Rose, the family consists of her stolid, easygoing husband George, a man whose life revolves around his pipe, his newspaper, his pint of beer and the local pub darts team, their cheeky young son Alfie, and George's two attractive teenage daughters from an earlier marriage. These two are very different in character. Vi, the elder, is rebellious, promiscuous and the current mistress of Morrie Hyams, a shopkeeper of dubious character who also acts as bandleader at the local dance-hall. Doris, the more docile, placid younger daughter, is being pursued by Morrie's equally dubious brother Lou, a bookmaker, but prefers her steady boyfriend Ted.We tend today to look back on the late forties as a time of post-way austerity and hardship, particularly in working class areas, but apart from a few shots of bomb-damaged buildings and references to the rationing system there is little of that to be seen here. The action all takes place on one single Sunday (probably in Autumn), and we see the East End at play rather than at work, with the local people enjoying themselves in the pub, at a street market, at the dance-hall and at an open-air boxing match (a chance for Lou Hyams to make some money by fixing the result).Despite this emphasis on fun and relaxation, however, the people we see are not the stereotyped lovable cheerful Cockneys familiar from many British films. Besides the more serious villainy of Swann and his like, there is also a considerable amount of petty crime, often used as a source of comic relief. There is a comic subplot about three minor-league villains who have stolen a lorry-load of roller-skates and are trying to find a fence who will dispose of them; the man they find is a sanctimonious hypocrite who objects to boys playing the mouth-organ on the Sabbath but has no objection to dealing in stolen goods. The dodgy Hyams brothers are also a source of humour, especially Morrie who, for all his flashy pretensions, is an essentially ludicrous character, caught between the demands of the sluttish Vi and his long-suffering wife Sadie. (The brothers have cut themselves off from their traditional Jewish family, who disapprove of their dishonest dealings, although it is noteworthy that Morrie still claims the right, as a Jew, to open his shop on Sunday, something that in the forties would have been forbidden to Gentiles).The main thrust of the film, however, is not humorous but serious. Rose (very well played by Googie Withers) is a tragic heroine. Her tragedy is that the man she loves is a violent rogue, who does not love her but makes use of her when it is in his interests, and that she cannot love her husband who is a decent, kindly man and treats her well. The film is a mixture of tragedy, thrills, documentary social realism and occasional humour. Although the film has not become recognised as a classic of the British cinema, unlike most of the Ealing Comedies or other crime dramas to the period, such as "The Blue Lamp", my view is that it deserves to be better remembered. 8/10
9 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Bleak, desolate, but heart warming, 3 February 1999 Author: Andrew Cox from Bolton, England
The film was made and set in the bleak environment of post-war east London and shows Robert Hamer to be an extremely talented and sophisticated film maker. Unlike Dearden and Relph, Hamer does not impose a moral framework on his characters. The film shows two sides of adultery between Googie Withers and the escaped convict and between her daughter and a Jewish shopkeeper. What makes this film stand out is its intentioned 'realism' and complex character portrayals. This little known classic is probably one of Ealing's finest films.
7 out of 7 people found the following review useful: A black and white slice of English history in the late 40's, 15 July 2001 Author: MIKE WILSON (MIKE.WILSON6@BTINTERNET.COM) from Bristol, England.
A superb study by Ealing studios, of a working class family, in the east end of London, after the 2nd World War. Googie Withers plays a harassed housewife, who during one Sunday lunchtime, discovers that her old boy friend, Tommy Swan, has broken out of jail and is in need of help.Local policeman Jack Warner is given the task of hunting him down. This film gives the viewer a fascinating look at life in England, in the late 1940's and early 50's. Look out for one scene, featuring the milkman, delivering milk, and his horse, walking up the centre of the street, and knowing just when to stop and when to go. Well worth watching.
7 out of 8 people found the following review useful: good solid drama, 7 October 2003 Author: david david from norwich, uk
i have to disagree with the other reviewer. this a good, solid drama that captures the mood of post war london expertly. the stories mesh together well and the performances, with one notable exception, are first rate. the atmospheric photgraphy adds to the overall feel of the piece and the climax is very exciting.
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful: IT ALWAYS RAINS ON Sunday (Robert Hamer, 1947) ***1/2, 9 February 2007 Author: MARIO GAUCI (marrod@melita.com) from Naxxar, Malta
Ealing Studios are chiefly remembered nowadays for their string of classic comedies made between 1946-55 but they also put out several notable pictures in other genres - including the justly celebrated horror portmanteau DEAD OF NIGHT (1945) - and this noir-ish melodrama is definitely one of their hidden gems. Although the plot per se is no great shakes - an escaped convict hides out in his by-now-married ex-flame's household - the idea was still fresh at the time and the film's marrying of the realistic and evocative recreation of daily life and surroundings (here being the seamier side of London's East End) with the exciting chase thriller format was much admired in its day and, in hindsight, very influential.The good cast is headed by the formidable Googie Withers as the embittered housewife whose life of drab domesticity comes crashing down around her with the sudden reappearance of her lover (John McCallum, and Withers' own real-life husband-to-be) who demands food and shelter until he can skip the country; her much older, unassuming husband is played by frequent Norman Wisdom sidekick Edward Chapman and the pursuing police detective by the ubiquitous Jack Warner who cornered such roles in British films of the era, most notably in Basil Dearden's THE BLUE LAMP (1950); Chapman's three children are each having problems of their own and their frequent comings-and-goings in the house during this particular Sunday (the film is set all in one day) brings long-suppressed tensions to the fore.Even without the eye-catching use of the medium of somebody like Carol Reed, the film is beautifully handled by the talented but ill-fated Robert Hamer - who, among other things, would later direct that which is undoubtedly Ealing's most famous comedy, KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949) - and the climactic sequence (expertly lit, as always, by Douglas Slocombe) in which all the various strands of plot and secondary characters are seamlessly woven together is simply exquisite.Optimum Releasing also included a featurette with film historian George Perry - who, incidentally, introduced THE BIG SLEEP (1946) at the recent National Film Theatre screening in London I attended; unfortunately, I encountered some playback problems on my Pioneer DVD player even before the start of the main feature but the R2 disc played without a hitch on my cheap HB model.
3 out of 4 people found the following review useful: Superb and spellbinding British Film Noir, 10 October 2007 Author: trpuk1968 from United Kingdom
Film Noir defies definition, plenty disagree whether its a movement, genre, style. Perhaps its more usefully conceived as a sensibility, a world view, an attitude. In which case the words pessimism, determinism ie characters lacking choice their lives are predetermined, doom, gloom, the past coming back to affect the present all spring to mind. Its possible to see a cycle of films with remarkably consistent features in terms of visual style emerging in U.S primarily and to a lesser extent the U.K and France in the forties and fifties. While most noir films have a male as the central protagonist, a male who is invariably weak and flawed, a number of these films, such as Mildred Pierce, have a female protagonist. Noir manifested itself differently in Britain, combining with elements of what was to become known as kitchen sink or social realism and frequently concerned with social class.This film uses the claustrophobic interiors of the terraced house to great effect. The noir style of long shadows, oblique angles, becomes more evident in the final climax, not really needed early on since the interiors work effectively without lighting effects. Melancholia drips through this like the rain of the title, Googie Withers is terrific, her face a mask of dreams, desires pushed away, disappointment etched over her features through her hard make up. How different she is in appearance to the femmes fatales of the U.S movies, bustling round the kitchen in her pinafore, then later on the almost military smartness of her utility dress when she attends Tommy. As a character shes every bit as strong however as her American counterparts. Like Mildred Pierce, she's strong in a domestic setting, when the usual convention for women in noir is to take them out of the domestic, placing them typically as nightclub singers or gangsters molls. In details I ll acknowledge this is on occasions cheesy and dated. Scratch at the surface however and its a fascinating exploration of the social tensions emerging after World War Two. How were people to adjust to life in peacetime? Were they able to return to the rigidly prescribed roles they d had prior to the war? Ealing studios produced a number of films which now can be seen to share many affinities with American Film Noir, this is one of the most interesting and rewarding.
5 out of 8 people found the following review useful: London Gothic.Wonderfully silly but irresistible., 4 November 2005 Author: ianlouisiana from United Kingdom
This is one of those "slice of cockney life" films so beloved of post war British filmmakers.It belongs in a time capsule along with "Picturegoer","Illustrated","Lilliput" and "Health and efficiency". It's so wonderfully silly and full of British thesps struggling bravely with their dipthongs and glottal stops. I don't think anybody actually says"Blimey guv'nor,yore a toff and no mistyke" but that was probably due to an oversight.However,there is some slight connection with real life in the 1940s that overrides these criticisms and makes it quite compelling in its absurd way.60 years ago London comprised of dozens of autonomous communities like the one shown in this film.They were separated by clearly defined social and physical boundaries.If a boy from Bethnal Green was walking out with a girl from Poplar,say,she would have been viewed with some suspicion by his friends and family. Together with Stepney,Bethnal Green,Poplar and Bow have merged into The Borough of Tower Hamlets.Half a century of Town Planning and Social Engineering has seen the community become ghettoised and divided along racial and religious lines that not even the most pessimistic East Ender could have foreseen.So in these black and white images we have a portrait of a society that - all unknowing - was on its way to extinction. The major problem I have with "It always rains on Sunday" is the casting of Miss G.Withers and Mr J.Macallum in the lead roles.I'm not sure what they're speaking but it certainly isn't cockney.Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell comes to mind. Jack Warner,Sidney Tafler and the great Meier Tzelnicker walk away with the film,masters all of what is now called "Estuary English". When you look at this and "The Blue Lamp" you are seeing the first stirrings of British Noir Cinema if I may use so grand a term.As such,both films have been hugely influential on subsequent generations of artists and countless TV soaps. Every film of course is a Time Machine,and here,preserved,is a Britain on the verge of the Welfare State,populated by people many of whom were still suffering from the deprivations of the Second World War,a male - dominated society where a considerable amount of the community had outside lavatories and no bathrooms,everybody smoked and the local copper could give you a clip round the ear without being thought a fascist brute because everybody knew what real fascists were. If you remember this era with some affection - however grudging - the chances are you already know "It always rains on Sunday". If it seems like a recounting of some Dark Age then you might find as L.P. Hartley said,that the past is a foreign country,and whilst it might be worth your while to take your passport and visit,you wouldn't want to live there.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: British Postwar Film Noir, 30 June 2008 Author: Red-125 from Upstate New York
It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), co-written and directed by Robert Hamer, is a film noir movie set in London's working class East End. The film is dated in many ways--London, two years after the end of WW II, is not the London that we know in the 21st Century. We can still see evidence of bomb damage, rationing still applies, and there's a sense of community where everyone knows everyone else's business. Police and petty criminals engage in banter: Joe runs a lunch wagon where criminals tend to meet. A detective sergeant stops at the wagon for information. Joe: We don't cater to the criminal classes. Detective Sergeant Fothergill: Turned over a new leaf?Several plot lines run through the film. An escaped convict--scarred after being flogged with a cat-o-nine-tails--turns up at the home of a woman he once loved, and who loved him. Rose Sandigate, played by the talented and beautiful Googie Withers, has since entered into a practical marriage with a man 15 years older than she is. We enter into her life, along with the lives of her two step-daughters, her son, three petty criminals trying to get rid of stolen roller skates, and some Jewish good guys, bad guys, and not-so-bad guys.The production values aren't great, and the lower class accents sometimes call for subtitles. Nevertheless, the central plot element of an escaped convict, who returns to find that the woman he loves has married while he was in jail, is as compelling now as it was 60 years ago.Finally, the powerful scene of detectives chasing a man through the train yards in the dark, was surely known to Carol Reed when he directed "The Third Man." Reed's scene, set in the sewers of Vienna, took place miles away from Hamer's London. Even so, in compelling action and suspense, they have a great deal in common.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: Bit o' bovver in Bethnal., 8 March 2008 Author: F Gwynplaine MacIntyre (Borroloola@earthlink.net) from Minffordd, North Wales
Googie Withers was England's equivalent of Joan Blondell (although better-looking and more talented): both actresses played similar types, alternating their performances between dramas and comedies. In 'It Always Rains on Sunday', Withers gives possibly the best performance of her career. She's skilfully abetted by a universally excellent cast.This is a taut thriller, very much in the Hitchcock vein, based on a novel by Arthur La Bern. (His novel 'Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square', set in Covent Garden in this same time period, was updated by Hitchcock as the basis for 'Frenzy'.) The lives (and a death) of several people in London's East End are deftly interwoven. A real strength of this drama is its perfect encapsulation of a distinctive time and place in one London neighbourhood: Bethnal Green and its environs.The dialogue is note-perfect, although Americans will want subtitles for such terms as "have a butcher's" (take a look), "sweet Fannie Adams" (not a bloody thing), "Bob's your uncle" (you're all set), "shopped" (informed upon), "clothes" (blankets) and "the Anderson" (a mass-produced prefabricated outdoor shelter during the Blitz, employed as garden sheds after the war). I was even impressed that the scriptwriters caught the East Enders' subtle distinction between "up west" (the West End) and "out west" (the Home Provinces). That Anderson shelter, Mrs Spry's doss-house, the ration book, the police call-box with Albertus panels (from the pre-999 era of Whitehall 1212), the wide boys and the spivs (notably the splendid John Slater) all gave me a twinge of nostalgia.SLIGHT SPOILER. The climactic chase is thrilling and well done, except for two shots using miniatures that are laughably obvious. American viewers might wonder why the plainclothesmen don't just simply shoot the fugitive. (When this film was made, British police never carried firearms except in very unusual circumstances.) I did notice a few minor errors, including some tech errors. Only two years after V-E Day, with rationing still in place, it's very unlikely that so many working-class Englishwomen would have such elaborate make-up. (Get a line on those carefully pencilled eyebrows!) Spivs or no spivs: how did so many of these characters get such elaborate and expensive leather gloves? And, drunk or not: would Vi (Susan Shaw) really go straight into bed without removing her make-up and her expensive frock? 'It Always Rains on Sunday' brilliantly preserves life in Bethnal Green in the late years of George VI's reign ... and also tells a cracking good suspense yarn. My rating for this one: despite a few flaws, a perfect 10 out of 10.
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