What is film noir? The genre has been described by a number of eminent critics as a movie, predominantly photographed in low-key lighting, and set in the "unstable universe" of the crime underworld in which "frightened, fugitive characters struggle to survive."
Film noir has a cohesive visual style. Dark, brooding images reinforce the noir movie's overall downbeat mood. The other consistent aspect of the genre can be found in its protagonists. They are usually ordinary people—good people at heart. Often alienated from society, they yet find themselves hopelessly entrapped (either through no fault of their own at all or a very minor failing) in the very milieu from which they are desperately trying to escape. The more they struggle against their fate, the deeper they sink into the swamp.
A masterpiece of the genre, Good-Time Girl is one hundred per cent film noir. The movie outraged censors in its day and it still packs a tremendous wallop. A scathing indictment of the British justice system, the movie presents us with an ill-fated heroine (most expressively acted by Jean Kent).
The nightmarish film noir quality of the story is abetted by the unique device of having it narrated in a perfectly straight fashion by the very same hideous person who sent our innocent heroine to the Dickensian reformatory. What is even more horrifying is that the brutal, brainless, totally insensitive and remarkably evil Flora Robson character uses the harrowing story neither to accuse herself nor to deny her own prime involvement in this shattering and totally inexcusable miscarriage of justice. Instead, she regards it as her "duty" to use it to point an unacceptable moral to all young girls to stay at home – even though they may be independent and earning a good wage – and put up with all the filth and squalor and brutality of the slums. It's impossible to reconcile Robson's "moral" with good sense, let alone justice and equity. No wonder the Australian censor banned the film!
The filmmakers themselves admitted in a synopsis provided to the Library of Congress that their movie was an exposé of British "justice" in which the innocent victim is brutalized at every turn until finally she is put away for a fifteen-year stretch for a crime in which she was a most unwilling accomplice.
These disturbing elements are driven home by a series of brilliant performances: Jean Kent as the beleaguered heroine; Peter Glenville as her spivvy accuser; Jill Balcon as "king" of the reform school; Flora Robson as the vicious magistrate; Beatrice Varley as the heroine's mother; Elwyn Brook-Jones as her lecherous employer; Griffith Jones as the vengeful Danny; and Danny Green (we see only his back, but what an expressive back it is)!
David MacDonald is not normally a director that I would go out of my way to salute, but in this case he has directed with force, pace and imaginative flair, aided by superbly noirish black and white camera-work and some marvelously atmospheric sets.
Film noir has a cohesive visual style. Dark, brooding images reinforce the noir movie's overall downbeat mood. The other consistent aspect of the genre can be found in its protagonists. They are usually ordinary people—good people at heart. Often alienated from society, they yet find themselves hopelessly entrapped (either through no fault of their own at all or a very minor failing) in the very milieu from which they are desperately trying to escape. The more they struggle against their fate, the deeper they sink into the swamp.
A masterpiece of the genre, Good-Time Girl is one hundred per cent film noir. The movie outraged censors in its day and it still packs a tremendous wallop. A scathing indictment of the British justice system, the movie presents us with an ill-fated heroine (most expressively acted by Jean Kent).
The nightmarish film noir quality of the story is abetted by the unique device of having it narrated in a perfectly straight fashion by the very same hideous person who sent our innocent heroine to the Dickensian reformatory. What is even more horrifying is that the brutal, brainless, totally insensitive and remarkably evil Flora Robson character uses the harrowing story neither to accuse herself nor to deny her own prime involvement in this shattering and totally inexcusable miscarriage of justice. Instead, she regards it as her "duty" to use it to point an unacceptable moral to all young girls to stay at home – even though they may be independent and earning a good wage – and put up with all the filth and squalor and brutality of the slums. It's impossible to reconcile Robson's "moral" with good sense, let alone justice and equity. No wonder the Australian censor banned the film!
The filmmakers themselves admitted in a synopsis provided to the Library of Congress that their movie was an exposé of British "justice" in which the innocent victim is brutalized at every turn until finally she is put away for a fifteen-year stretch for a crime in which she was a most unwilling accomplice.
These disturbing elements are driven home by a series of brilliant performances: Jean Kent as the beleaguered heroine; Peter Glenville as her spivvy accuser; Jill Balcon as "king" of the reform school; Flora Robson as the vicious magistrate; Beatrice Varley as the heroine's mother; Elwyn Brook-Jones as her lecherous employer; Griffith Jones as the vengeful Danny; and Danny Green (we see only his back, but what an expressive back it is)!
David MacDonald is not normally a director that I would go out of my way to salute, but in this case he has directed with force, pace and imaginative flair, aided by superbly noirish black and white camera-work and some marvelously atmospheric sets.