It Always Rains on Sunday (1947)

Director:

Robert Hamer

Writers:

Arthur La Bern (novel) and
Henry Cornelius (writer)

Release Date:

1948 (Austria)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Tagline:

The secrets of a street you know

Plot:

An escaped convict tries to hide out at his former lover's house but she has since married and is far from keen on the idea.

Plot Keywords:

Police | Sunday | Attempted Suicide | Beautiful Woman | Stepmother

Cast

Googie Withers	...	Rose Sandigate
Edward Chapman	...	George Sandigate
Susan Shaw	...	Vi Sandigate
Patricia Plunkett	...	Doris Sandigate
David Lines	...	Alfie Sandigate
Sydney Tafler	...	Morry Hyams
Betty Ann Davies	...	Sadie Hyams
John Slater	...	Lou Hyams, brother of Morrie
Jane Hylton	...	Bessie Hyams, sister of Morrie
Meier Tzelniker	...	Solly Hyams, father of Morrie
John McCallum	...	Tommy Swann
Jimmy Hanley	...	Whitey
John Carol	...	Freddie
Alfie Bass	...	Dicey Perkins
Jack Warner	...	Detective Sergeant Fothergill

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #12176) | Germany:16 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (video rating) (2004)

Filming Locations:

Broadgate, London, England, UK

Company:

Ealing Studios

Goofs:

Boom mic visible: At the club, when Sadie (Morry's wife) sits down to talk to Doris, the spotlight shines on the wall behind them, and the shadow of the microphone is briefly visible.

Quotes:

Joe: We don't cater to the criminal classes.
Detective Sergeant Fothergill: Turned over a new leaf?
Joe: There's such a thing as a law of libel.
Detective Sergeant Fothergill: There's such a thing as ham, but there's none in this sandwich.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Forever Ealing (2002) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Theme Without Words

Superb and spellbinding British Film Noir

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.