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Film Description
An unusually bleak but high quality film from Ealing Studios, in which Googie Withers stars as a housewife whose life is complicated when her ex-lover, an escaped violent criminal, comes to her for help and hides in the air raid shelter in her back yard. Withers is excellent in her last Ealing film, and the drab London post-war atmosphere is beautifully captured.
Film Noir, understood as a combination of stylistic and thematic trends along with a pessimistic world view, has a classical period acknowleged as being during the for... more >
Film Noir, understood as a combination of stylistic and thematic trends along with a pessimistic world view, has a classical period acknowleged as being during the forties and fifties. Predominantly American, French and British, it manifests in distinct ways either side of the Atlantic. In the UK its more B movie, low budget and frequently marries with what became known as kitchen sink realism.
Like its American counterparts, particular stars recur. In British film noir Googie Withers is a staple, also appearing in Night And The City. Another example would be Diana Dors, who stars in several of the Hammer noir B movies.
Withers here is terrific, the big difference she has from her American sisters is departing from the archetypal femme fatale. Women in British noir are every bit as strong as their American sisters, but positioned rather differently. The men are generally weak and ineffectual in these films, but rather than sirens, destined to be the excuse of men s self destructive behaviour, in British noir the women tend to be the much stronger characters.
In this film Googie Withers, although clearly transgressive, is not punished. The mise en scene of her cramped terrace house conveys a stifling conformity, her every gesture and expression indicating repressed frustration at the limitations of her life and the constraints within which she operates.
Social class and the stranglehold it exerts upon the creativity, the spirit of the individual is a key trope in British film noir. Its central to this film, set in London s East End. A world of ration books, scarcity, petty crime, with the war still casting its shadow. A proto feminist text, in the way the domestic life is foregrounded, this remains essential viewing for enthusiasts of British cinema and film noir. < less
