I saw this film on Talking Pictures, a UK television channel which is an invaluable source of mainly British films from former decades. It is a treasure trove. I watched this Lewis Gilbert film expecting better. I also watched it for Barbara Murray, an excellent actor who was not given enough of worth. Her 'love' relationship with Max Bygraves was implausible and somehow funny for all the wrong reasons. What on earth were they thinking in casting her: highly sophisticated and worldly (in the Kay Kendall sense) with him? No, this is not snobbery, it just equals no chemistry. Apart from her there was Sean Barrett, one of our finest and most handsome actors, too rarely used at the end of the Fifties, looking way too old to be in a children's home.
Now for the content of the film with as few spoilers as possible. Set in a children's home run by people with almost zero empathy, the children are at the heart of the story. I am not sure why in 1958 it did not have an X certificate. 'Cosh Boy' by the same director did and that was a laugh a minute in comparison. A boy who loses his alcoholic mother to suicide; a boy with a loaded gun under his bed which ends up in the hands of young children who aim it at themselves and just, and I do mean just, miss out on killing Max Bygraves. The atmosphere was as dark as a film by Clouzot (Les Diaboliques) and would have had a fatalistic feeling for most children at the time. Hanging is even casually mentioned!! Yes, I know it was post war but it is definitely not fit for children. A mixture of children's film and very adult material, all wrapped up nicely with a ribbon at the end: a final frame of a desolate looking boy staring out at us. His was the cry from the streets.
Now for the content of the film with as few spoilers as possible. Set in a children's home run by people with almost zero empathy, the children are at the heart of the story. I am not sure why in 1958 it did not have an X certificate. 'Cosh Boy' by the same director did and that was a laugh a minute in comparison. A boy who loses his alcoholic mother to suicide; a boy with a loaded gun under his bed which ends up in the hands of young children who aim it at themselves and just, and I do mean just, miss out on killing Max Bygraves. The atmosphere was as dark as a film by Clouzot (Les Diaboliques) and would have had a fatalistic feeling for most children at the time. Hanging is even casually mentioned!! Yes, I know it was post war but it is definitely not fit for children. A mixture of children's film and very adult material, all wrapped up nicely with a ribbon at the end: a final frame of a desolate looking boy staring out at us. His was the cry from the streets.