Hue and Cry

6.344
Date

1947-02-01

Country

GB

Runtime

1.37h

Genre

Comedy

Overview

A gang of street boys foil a master crook who sends commands for robberies by cunningly altering a comic strip's wording each week, unknown to writer and printer. The first of the Ealing comedies.

Cast

Alastair Sim
Felix H. Wilkinson
Jack Warner
Nightingale
Valerie White
Rhona
Jack Lambert
Ford
Harry Fowler
Joe Kirby

Poster

Not Found

Review

By CinemaSerf

This is one of the lesser known Ealing comedies and it has something of the Children's Film Foundation output to it too, as the youngsters cotton on to a dastardly plan to use the narrative bubbles in a children's comic to convey messages that unwittingly to the publisher and animator facilitate daring robberies. It's only when the young "Joe" (Harry Fowler) and his mates start to put two and two together, and with the help of "Felix" (Alastair Sim) they start to hone in on the kingpin - safe in the knowledge that he is close amongst them and will not go quietly if he is discovered. The humour is dark, subtle and personable, as are the efforts from Jack Warner ("Nightingale") and it is set in a wonderfully gritty post war, bombed-out London full of craters and ruins in which to set the increasingly enjoyable scenario. The youngsters gel well together too, a team effort with the odd red herring and plenty of fisticuffs that compensate for the nor terribly high production standards (especially the tinny audio). Remembering the environment in which it was made, it's a remarkably enjoyable and light-hearted indication that war was over and that the sunlit uplands were again on the horizon. Good fun.


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