ITV Television Playhouse (TV Series) Thunder on Sycamore Street (1957) User Reviews

Not lost. Not about a convict. Quite a discovery

[davidvmcgillivray-24-905811 · 7/10 · 15 August 2021]

1954 was a big year for Reginald Rose. He wrote "Twelve Angry Men" as well as this not dissimilar play about conscience for the CBS TV series "Studio One." The former had lasting success, both as a film and later a stage play. But Rose was required to re-write "Thunder on Sycamore Street" before it was broadcast. Executives worried that white prejudice against a black family would not play well in the American South. Rose replaced the black characters with a white ex-convict and his daughter. The play was subsequently adapted for TV throughout the world. But in every country with one exception the white convict stayed in the story. The exception was the UK. In 1957 the new and adventurous Granada TV hired Stanley Mann to reinstate the black family into Rose's play. (Racial violence was becoming common in the UK and would explode the following year in the Notting Hill Race Riots). The play is about white residents, who are planning to force a black family out of their street. At first it seems as though the second reel has been accidentally projected twice. But soon it's clear that the "Rashomon"-style construction is showing the same incident from three different perspectives. It's gripping stuff, well-played by everyone (although the accents are all over the place) and the ending, suggesting that hope for an end to mindless prejudice, lies with our children, is still moving. A telerecording in the ITV Archive was unseen until 2021, when it was included in a BFI Southbank tribute to Earl Cameron, who plays the black father. It's not in good condition and it shows once again that live TV drama in the UK at the time was primitive compared to the American "golden age." But director Silvio Narizzano does what he can with perhaps three lumbering cameras. Technical quality means that this will never be re-shown on TV. But it should be made available in cinematheques not only because of its message and the way it's handled but to remind viewers of subject matter that was not acceptable at the time in the US. Perhaps somebody with time on their hands could re-write the IMDb synopsis and remove the "lost film" keyword. It also goes without saying that Earl Cameron's mother is not played by Irish leading lady Constance Smith but the elderly black actress Connie Smith.