No Trees in the Street

A what seems corny film,draws you in to highly emotional and moving finale

I wanted to watch this having just seen J Lee Thompson's earlier one of Diana Dors in Yield to the Night (1956). This is not quite as good as that one but it was much better than I thought it might have been. It was surprisingly good that the East End slums were made to be more realistic than sentimental. The screenplay was by Ted Willis from his original play and with great dialogue. Of course Herbert Lom is impressive, even if I didn't expect he would have been in a kitchen sink drama. Sylvia Syms is also good although I did find the young Melvyn Hayes was rather annoying and I had never really liked him such as in Summer Holiday (1963) or many of his many TV series like, It Ain't Half Hot Mum (1974-1981) but I suppose he just about holds it together in this. Stanley Holloway is great and almost sings more than talks and certainly does in this and he could certainly do his authentic Cockney voice.

Melvyn Hayes plays Tommy, a teenager who is only to readily lead astray by Herbert Lom's character 'Wilkie'. Tommy's sister (Sylvia Syms) tries to help Tommy whilst being a love interest for Wilkie. Shot on a budget, but well-adapted for cinema, this is several steps above an average kitchen sink drama of the time.

Hayes' performance is slightly overwrought, Lom's is accomplished, and Syms' is surprisingly sensitive.

Interesting that the new high-rise flats of the time were deemed 'better' than the old back to backs.... but now things have turned full circle and the high rises are coming down in favour of more conventional streets once more.

Overall an interesting period piece, worth watching.

Ted Willis was hardly at the edge of social realism after all it was he who introduced us to Dixon of Dock Green.Whilst the works of Pinter,Osborne and Whitehouse live on Willis is totally forgotten.This film was clearly intended to latch on to this trend and fails miserably.The film has poor attention to detail.The film is supposed to be set in the thirties but all styles are contemporary to the time of filming in the fifties.The film is studio bound and lends to the air of artificiality.The film commits the cardinal sin,it fails to entertain.

The story is much used – a family being dragged down by their dead end street – but this one stands up okay. Hetty (Sylvia Sims) is caught between tearaway brother Michael (Melvyn Hayes) and smoothy gangster Wilkie (Herbert Lom). While Ronald Howard's Frank dances a fine line between being a cop and supporting his neighbourhood.

A decent story develops as Frank, Michael & Wilkie weave in and out of Hetty's life. The film introduces a number of rich supporting characters to complement the story.

The actors measure their roles well although Hayes' emotion tends to grate. Lom is the pick as the gangster who can switch between menacing and tender without any difficulty.

7 out of 10