It Always Rains On Sunday [DVD]

The Ealing Studios became a fine independant studio under the leadership of Producer Michael Balcon. This film - It Always Rains On Sunday - is a quirky post war drama, enhanced by a superb performance by Googie Withers. Set in London's working class East End, Rose Sandigate (Withers) has no idea when she awakes on Sunday morning that her run of the mill life is about to change. Fifteen years earlier, her fiance Tommy Swan (John McCallum) was jailed in Dartmouth Prison for thieving, and now the place is abuzz because he has escaped and is on the run.
Jack Warner plays DS Fothergill, and he searches the East End for Swan's old cohort's,figuring he will return there and hide out. He does, and takes shelter out in the shed behind the Sandigate home. The cat and mouse drama heats up when Rose decides to help her ex lover to escape,and the chase sequence at the films end was very well done with some great camera work and lighting.
Apart from Withers, Jack Warner turns in another fine and seemingly effortless performance.Edward Chapman gives good support as Rose's husband,George, as do both McCallum, and Sydney Tafler.
The film was directed by Robert Hamer,(who also directed Kind Hearts and Coronets for Ealing) and the end result is a fine drama with a few twists and turns along the way. A very entertaining film indeed.

The words "gritty" and "drab" are very appropriate for this excellent film. It is, by its very nature, desiged to be set in the drab environment of post-war Britain.

Rose Sandigate (Googie Withers) was engaged to a local "wide boy", Tommy Swann (John McCallum). However, Tommy becomes involved in armed robbery and is sentenced to a harsh term in jail. Conditions are very harsh and Tommy manages to escape and goes "on the run". He hasn't a clue where to go, but decides upon the only person he ever really trusted: Rose. He hides in the dank, dark bomb shelter in the back garden of her house, which is no longer used. He doesn't realise that his one-time fiancé is now married, albeit not very happily and is living in a dingy, cramped house, but at least she is respectable.

She finds him by chance and, despite everything, still feels something for him; for what might have been; for the life that could have been so much different from the one she lives now. Through a series of extremely tense scenes, she manages to conceal Tommy, although the tension shows. The acting is absolutely first class (only to be expected of Googie Withers) and gives a true sense of the squalor and difficulties people faced in those desperate times.

The film depicts a situation that, even today, happens all too often, where people fall in love, become involved and, for one reason or another, it doesn't work out. It is a story of reality; real lives and real people. It is also interesting, as the escaped convict was subjected to severe "corporal punishment", at the hands of the authorities; something that, certainly in the UK, has long since been outlawed.

Despite his crimes, one cannot fail to feel a degree of sympathy for Tommy, who was treated in such a savage and barbaric manner, in what was supposed to be a civilised society, still reeling from the punishment that Nazi Germany wreaked upon so many. And one also cannot help but feel sorry for the woman who loved him and who stills loves him and wants to try to help him. She wasn't a criminal; she was in love and desperately wanting to find a way out of her dreary and hum-drum life.

Take a look at the squalid houses which, to all intents and purposes, were pretty good in their day, when people didn't seem to have the same concerns over interior decoration, so long as they had a roof over their head and enough food to get by. It was very much a question of "getting by" and hoping that the future would hold something better. If we think things are going to get bad here, with the calls for austerity and "cut-backs", perhaps a sobering look at post-war life will bring us back to reality. We don't know we're living. You certainly wouldn't be sentenced to physical punishment and hard labour, for robbery (albeit armed). Prisoners in the UK, now, don't face the death penalty and life in prison is nowhere near as harsh, as it was when this film was made.

Googie Withers is absolutely superb in the role and the supporting cast are also excellent and very realistic. An excellent film, very atmospheric and sad. A story of love, courage, squalour and the grim realities of life in a country that was escaping from the hell of war, only to propell itself into...........

Watch it and think!

Rather drab and gloomy 1940s movie with apt title, starring real-life husband and wife of sixty years - Googie Withers and John McCallum (now both aged ninety!)

A star-studded cast here, with some of the best known names in British cinema of the time! A film that can be rather dismal in places, but is brightened by a rather 'dishy' Sydney Tafler, being torn between his wife (Betty Ann Davies) and his 'bit on the side' (played by Susan Shaw)

Rosie (Googie Withers) is now married to a man fifteen years her senior. A previous boyfriend from the wrong side of the law escapes from prison, and turns up on her doorstep on the run. Rosie, with a love re-kindled, takes advantage of her loyal and 'decent' husband, along with some daring chances, and attempts to help the escaped convict. Lots of suspenseful moments in this, and as with several movies made by Googie at around this time, shows her talents with some defying and harsh facets to her character. All heads for tragedy - watch to find out how it all turns out!

Good viewing!