Noticias

By Darren Allison

Chain of Events 1958 Region 2 DVD Review: Directed by Gerald Thomas, Starring Kenneth Griffith, Susan Shaw, Dermot Walsh, Freddie Mills and Joan Hickson. Released November 2nd 2015

A taut 1958 crime melodrama, Chain of Events features noted actor and film-maker Kenneth Griffith as a bank clerk whose attempt to dodge a fare has devastating consequences; a powerful cast includes Rank "Charm School" starlet Susan Shaw and future Richard the Lionheart lead Dermot Walsh. Chain of Events is also directed in sharp, pacey style by the ‘Carry On’ legend Gerald Thomas.

Rather curiously, Chain of Events was adapted from a radio play written by the late Australian character actor Leo McKern. John Clarke (Kenneth Griffith), an uninspiring sort of gentleman, one day boards a bus on his way home from work and foolishly “forgets” to pay his fare. He is caught by an inspector, but instead of owning up to it,...

This time on The Forgotten, we've made the film under discussion available to watch, for free, below.

1948 was one of the great years of British film, with Powell & Pressburger, David Lean and others on top form. Terence Fisher, later to make his name at Hammer (Curse of Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula, etc.) was only just beginning his career, but he began it well: soon he would co-direct the gripping Hitchcockian yarn So Long at the Fair (1950), but before that came 40-minute short subject To the Public Danger, a thriller revolving around drunk driving.

As four characters meet in an English roadhouse and begin the kind of inebriate evening people fresh from WWII seemed to take in their strides, recklessness and arrogance leads towards inevitable doom, with the boozing accompanied by bullying, seduction, class prejudice, cowardice, paranoia and a slew of other unattractive qualities. The result is not so much mounting tension as an oppressive,...