Daily Archives: July 10, 2015

The Blue Lamp
Directed by Basil Dearden
Written by T.E.B. Clarke and Alexander Makendrick, original treatment by Jan Read and Ted Willis
1950/UK
Ealing Studios
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Diana Lewis: What d’ye think I am? Soft or something?

Spud: Yeah.[/box]

What starts out as a rather wholesome police procedural turns into a gritty thriller and fine character study of a punk courtesy of a young Dirk Bogarde.

The movies begins with a plea for more police presence to combat post-war crime and a look at the daily duties of a London bobby.  Eventually the story focuses on PC George Dixon (Jack Warner) who is due to retire soon and PC Andy Mitchell (Jimmy Hanley), the rookie he takes under his wing.  We see the pair on the beat and George introducing Andy to his wife as a potential boarder.  Andy is promptly adopted as one of the family.

This is accompanied by the activities of a couple of delinquent thieves, Tom Riley (Bogarde) and Spud.  Tom has talked seventeen year-old Diana Lewis into running away from home and serving as an accomplice in their next job.  Separately, Andy is assigned to track her down.  He finds her but she cannot be held or forced to go home because she is of age.

Somewhere along the line,. Tom gets hold of a gun.  He enjoys the power it gives him far too much.  He has fun seeing how much he can terrify Diana with it.  Then he uses it against a policeman in the course of a robbery and the chase is on.

Bogarde is fantastic in this.  I liked the way he conveyed a kid who is tough on the outside and panicky on the inside and so cocksure he does the first three or four stupid things that occur to him.  There’s quite an impressive car and foot chase at the end, including the cops trying to capture their suspect from a crowded racetrack.  Recommended.

The Blue Lamp won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film.

No movie clip so here is a montage of clips in tribute to Dirk Bogarde set to “As Time Goes By”  sung by Brian Ferry – what an actor!

The Damned Don’t Cry
Directed by Vincent Sherman
Written by Harold Medford and Jeronme Weidman from a story by Gertude Walker
1950/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Amazon Instant

Ethel Whitehead: Don’t talk to me about self-respect. That’s something you tell yourself you got when you got nothing else.

Joan Crawford sleeps herself to the top in this melodramatic noir.

Ethel Whitehead (Crawford) hates her life. Her family, a blue-collar worker husband and young son she adores, still lives with her parents.  The husband is so mean he won’t even let her buy a bicycle for the boy.  She does anyway and her son is killed while riding. That’s Ethel’s cue to walk out.

Before long, our heroine’s looks and figure are noticed and she starts working as a model for a dress manufacturer.  One of the model’s jobs is to entertain the buyers in the evening which earns them some extra cash.  Ethel initially is reluctant to do this but ends up more hard-bitten than the colleague who broke her in.

Ethel meets Martin Blankford (Kent Smith) an accountant.  She gets interested before she finds out he actually doesn’t make much money.  So she introduces him to the owner of a fancy restaurant she frequents.  His accounting skills impress the owner and pretty soon Martin is called for an interview with a syndicate.  It turns out the syndicate is a front for various vice rackets and Martin doesn’t want anything to do with them.  Ethel persuades him to go along.

Then George Castleman (David Bryan), the boss, makes his move on Ethel.  As part of her advancement she gets a fancy apartment and wardrobe and a new name, Lorna Forbes.  She easily passes in the ritziest of circles.  Martin is understandably peeved but persists in hanging around.

Finally George sends Lorna out west to find out what’s up with his West Coast man Nick Prenta (Steve Cochran).  Lorna gets in deeper than George intended.

I thought this was OK.  I never can buy Crawford as a man magnet but she is always convincing as a woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.  The men surrounding her are, as always, pretty uncharismatic.  There’s something I like about Steve Cochran’s heavies though.

Trailer