Chain of Events (1958) User Reviews

Entertaining British Thriller

[robertbevan-57102 · 7/10 · 28 September 2020]

Splendid film showing how a small action by one person can cause huge consequences to others, the butterfly effect basically.

Besides the plots, what is most enjoyable in British films of this period is trying to recognise the locations and seeing the wonderful old vehicles used. This, together with spotting the character actors especially those uncredited, makes for a thoroughly entertaining hour or two. This is an entertaining film with good cast and well paced. Susan Shaw always looks stunning and it is sad that the death of her husband caused her to drink and subsequently die at an early age. Freddie Mills is always good value but also had a tragic end in real life.

Filmed mainly around Uxbridge High Street, Windsor Street and Tube Station together with some footage of Station Parade, Beaconsfield and Hyde Park Place, it is fascinating to see how places have changed over the years. This is not always for the best.

The vehicles involved include a rather nice Bentley R Type, Drop Head Coupe which is still extant albeit with new paintwork, a Hillman Husky which probably rusted away completely very quickly as that model was prone to do and a wonderful Standard Flying 14 which I would love to have owned.

Altogether well worth watching.

Excellent ironical tale of how one thing leads to another

[robert-temple-1 · 7/10 · 1 June 2017]

This is a very good fifties ensemble drama directed by Gerald Thomas, which shows how tiny events can lead to a series of larger ones culminating in catastrophes. (And this was decades before the urban legend of the butterfly flapping its wings in South America arose.) The acting is excellent, and it is sad to think that this was the last time that the lovely Susan Shaw appeared in a film (aged 29) before her husband died in an accident and she went to pieces. Although she appeared in a few things after that, she entered a terminal depression, turned to drink, and died at 49. And yet here she is, all fresh and jolly with her life still in front of her. So that is a further irony associated with this film, which is a sardonic threnody to the interventions of tragic irony in our lives. Tes film positively reeks of the fifties, and anyone who wonders what English daily life was like then can see the whole panoply of it laid out here, down to the last teacup. What the men were like then, what the women were like then, seems as distant now as the dinosaurs. And although the entire story hinges upon a London bus conductor, there are none left today. They are greatly missed by all who remember them, with their wisecracks, cranky folk wisdom and observations about the weather, and their odd and amusing personalities. They could not exist today in our relentless world of 'elf and safety and dour 'political correctness'. In this story we see just how dangerous it was to go out with insufficient change for a bus fare, and how one really diced with fate by being so foolhardy as to insult a bus conductor's integrity in front of his inspector. As for the stuffy bank clerks, and their finicky ways back then, one misses them far less. They could be so tiresome and irritating that if they were still around, they would be enough to drive one to the despondent option of that otherwise unthinkable madness, 'online banking', or 'hacker's paradise' as I prefer to call it. This entertaining film is very well worth seeing, and is a solid social history lesson as well.

A Sorry Lack of Logic

[tony-70-667920 · 5/10 · 30 October 2019]

I usually enjoy low-budget British films from the 50s; they're short, don't dawdle, and show the way we were back then. This one, though, fails because of a serious lack of logic, which I'm surprised none of the other reviewers has mentioned.. A bank clerk is caught trying to get off a bus without paying. He gives the name and address as that of John Stockman, an unpleasant customer at the bank. Stockman is convicted after the conductor and ticket inspector identify him as the fare-dodger, despite the fact that he looks nothing like the clerk. Would they really be that stupid? Our hero, a reporter, is fired because he didn't investigate if Stockman had an alibi (turns out Stockman has been bankrolling his struggling paper.) Yet he wrote a perfectly fair summary of the open and shut case, in which Stockman never put forward an alibi. The owner of the paper, Lord Fenchurch, is blackmailed because he'd been keeping a mistress. Her spiv boyfriend waits with a thug (Freddie Mills) for the second payment to be made, in order to grab the money. How did he know where to wait, since the affair was over and the mistress had no idea where the first payment had been handed over? Pity the script had so many holes, as the performances were good (particularly cherishable character actors like Kenneth Griffith and Joan Hickson), while the tragic Susan Shaw was at the peak of her loveliness.

Well-made British thriller

[lucyrf · 27 September 2016]

The great charm of British films of this era is the glimpse of London and country towns the way they were all those years ago.

Trevor Griffiths is a prissy bank clerk with a sarcastic wife, glimpsed in one scene. The story is set in motion when one day he finds he hasn't enough change to pay his bus fare, and instead of owning up to the bus conductor (who's asking for exact fares), pretends he has paid. Unfortunately an inspector boards the bus, he continues to lie, and a nasty situation arises. (In fact, the officials make an awful lot of fuss about a few pennies.) He foolishly gives, not his name, but the details of a bank customer. Who is taken to court, and is so rude that he is fined £5. There's a reporter in court who scents a good story and the upright citizen's shame is splashed all over the press.

Segue to the newspaper offices. The reporter loses his job - why didn't he check that the man had an alibi? He drowns his sorrows and lets slip that the paper's owner keeps a girl in a London flat. But the gossip columnist has overheard, and happens to know a handy blackmailer, and...

The owner's secretary, engaged to the reporter, overhears the blackmailer's phone call and advises the owner to go to the police. "But my dying wife!" says the owner. So the secretary goes off to confront the girl in question - she must deny everything if asked.

And so it goes on...

It seems to be taking place in a country town rather than London, and there's a thrilling car chase featuring a bull-nosed Morris and what looks like a Reliant Robin through the streets of what could be Reigate.

Susan Shaw is good as the secretary. In one scene she is wearing a sleeveless tweed dress (they must have been awfully hot), and in the next scene she is wearing a backless sun dress - quite unsuitable for the office. And how did women fit anything into those tiny handbags?

In fact, any secretary who talked to her boss as an equal and listened in on his phone calls would have quickly got the sack - and there were no industrial tribunals or HR departments.

just the ticket

[malcolmgsw · 7/10 · 14 October 2019]

Kenneth Griffiths' may be periphal to the main story but he gives his usual entertaining cameo.Interesting that parts of the film was photographed on a trolley bus

Perfectly displays the ripple effect.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 9/10 · 31 October 2018]

When you throw a pebble into a still pond, you'll watch that calmness interrupted as the ripples flow out, growing as they move out. This film works in the exact same way, the moment that clerk does the tiniest thing, not paying for his bus ticket, things spiral out of control, getting worse and worse.

I loved it, I thought it was clever, original, amusing, and a definite warning, 'always pay for your train and bus tickets,' had he done so, would any of the unfortunate events have occurred, who knows.

The acting was terrific, Dermot Walsh, Jack Watling and Susan Shaw in particular, and of course a wonderfully humorous turn from the wonderful Joan Hickson as the Barmaid.

Overall, I would class this fifties film as excellent. 9/10

So-so, despite the premise

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 22 August 2019]

I was hoping CHAIN OF EVENTS would turn out to be a bit better than it actually is, but it's rather so-so overall despite an intriguing premise. It's an hour-long cheapie shot by CARRY ON director Gerald Thomas, just before he became solely known for shooting comedy. Things start off very well with Kenneth Griffith (who excelled playing snivelling characters such as this) attempting to avoid paying a bus fare and setting an unlikely 'chain of events' in motion. However, I did find the middle section flagged somewhat, getting too bogged down in a random extortion plot, although the circular ending is a nice touch. The reliable Dermot Walsh plays a hard-nosed reporter alongside Miss Marple Joan Hickson as a barmaid and Freddie Mills as a hilarious thug.

A clever wee film.

[plan99 · 8/10 · 29 September 2020]

A little gem that should not be missed when it appears on TV. A great plot which runs along very nicely, I loved it.

Non-sensical chain of events

[johnshephard-83682 · 3/10 · 2 November 2019]

I agree with other reviewers that this quite likeable, symmetrically-plotted, narrative, is somewhat spoiled by a number of plot-holes: the clearly wrong man being positively identified by the bus staff as the fare-dodger; the reporter being sacked for accurately reporting the outcome of a fairly trivial court-case; the implausible 'heavies' inexplicably knowing where to intercept the equally implausible blackmailers; the 'comedy' muscle, Freddie Mills, instructed to overpower the lookout, rather than the one with the cash; the other heavy attacking the driver during the getaway; the bus conductor recognising Kenneth Griffith (Clarke the clerk) as the fare-dodger despite identifying Ballard Berkley as the one in the courtroom earlier; Griffith then blindly running into the road, as if he was a murderer on the run, rather than scarpering down a side street; and so on. Never mind, it passed an hour, and you get what you pay for.

Entertaining Little Film

[tynesider · 19 February 2020]

One thing leads to another might be an apt description of this film. Bank clerk, bus stop, trolley bus, magistrates court, newspaper reporter, blackmail, and so on, eventually ending up at the bus stop again. Nice to see all those old favourite actors again. Incidentally the music used in the opening and closing credits is 'Automation' by Dutch composer Hugo de Groot which was also used in the 1950s BBC TV police series 'Fabian of the Yard'.

"The Innocent Always Suffer..."

[richardchatten · 8/10 · 11 August 2019]

If producer Peter Rogers hadn't already just used it for one of the thrillers he and director Gerald Thomas made before they hit paydirt with the 'Carry Ons' (at least three actors who featured in the early 'Carry Ons' - Frank Forsyth, Cyril Chamberlain & Anthony Sagar - appear within the first ten minutes of this film), 'The Vicious Circle' would have been a more suitable title for this diverting little drama which resembles a less bleak version of 'On the Night of the Fire' and 'Very Bad Things', in which events spiral outwards in unforeseen ways like ripples rather than form a simple chain.

Although buses no longer have conductors, a remarkable amount of the film has proved remarkably unchanged, notably the arguments that still break out when someone hasn't paid their fare on a bus, and the amoral opportunism of tabloid journalists when they sniff a juicy story...

Carry on Blackmail

[atrickyone · 5/10 · 29 October 2022]

The director of this movie, Gerald Thomas, played a major role in the development of the Carry On series of comedies later in his career. This effort could have been one of those, so farcical was the trajectory of the plot. Meek bank teller avoids bus fare, gets caught out by the conductor and inspector, gives false name when pressed, leading to the wrong man being in the dock. It's stated in the court that the two bus company employees were adamant in their identification, yet the real perpetrator and the wrongly accused bore not the slightest resemblance to one another, except they both spoke English and wore suits. One quite tall, the other short, loud versus softly spoken, confident versus sniveling. To make matters even worse, and further to insult the intelligence of the viewer, the bus conductor subsequently catches a brief glimpse of the real culprit and identifies him immediately. There are more idiocies as the film progresses though none as egregious. The actors are good and obviously needed the work. The writers should have been ashamed.

First class Thriller - Not to be missed!

[jaydee-28593 · 9/10 · 3 August 2017]

I happened to see Chain of Events when it was first released back in 1958 as a supporting feature, and have been anxiously waiting to see it again. I purchased a copy on DVD as soon as it was released and was not disappointed. It is a brilliant thriller beginning with a nondescript bank teller who fails to pay his bus fare and progresses through blackmail, a car chase, and ending up with a death. Brilliantly directed by Gerald Thomas from a play by Leo McKern. Dermot Walsh is excellent as the bank teller and is well supported by a good cast. Ballard Berkeley (The Major from Fawlty Towers) even has a small part. All in all an excellent little thriller.

Weakest Link

[writers_reign · 5/10 · 28 October 2016]

The relatively new outfit Network is spending a lot of time (if not money, the bulk of them are out of copyright) on reissuing British 'B' movies from the forties and fifties, about half of which, had the technology and the term existed, would have 'gone straight to video'. On the plus side we do get to see several people who went on to major productions - Robert Newton, James Mason, Richard Burton - in early roles as well as excellent supporting actors - Marjorie Reynolds, Wifrid Lawson, Mary Clare and the like. A great deal of this stuff was froth like this effort in which Kenneth Griffith, riding on a bus without paying, snowballs out of control. Pleasant enough for the undemanding.

Modest British B movie

[miked-26800 · 5/10 · 8 February 2021]

Rather tame and unconvincing in parts but worth watching for a nice performance by Kenneth Griffiths, who is the stand out actor. Features cameo performances from Ballard Berkeley (the major in Fawlty Towers) and ex. boxer, Freddie Mills. The moral of the story seems to be that avoiding paying a bus fair can lead to dreadful goings on.