Hue and Cry
- 1947
- 1h 22min
Agrega una trama en tu idiomaA 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 com... Leer todoA 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.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.
- Terry
- (as James Crabb)
- Dirección
- Guionista
- Todo el elenco y el equipo
- Producción, taquilla y más en IMDbPro
Opiniones destacadas
A crime caper focussed on kids who discover a criminal ring that are using a comic strip to send instructions to plan their jobs.
Joe Kirby (Harry Fowler) is a lad who is always in a spot of bother. He is placed by a policeman for a job with a Covent Garden grocer Nightingale (Jack Warner) who listens to his stories of a fur smuggling ring with a filthy laugh.
Felix Wilkinson (Alastair Sim) is the scatty comic strip writer who stories are being manipulated by an insider in the publishers. As the police does not believe Joe's fantastical tale, it is up to him and his gang to take on the crooks.
I must have first watched this film as a teenager. It rather reminded me of those Enid Blyton adventures I used to read as a kid. The post war setting of a bombed out London make the city look like an adventure playground for kids.
It is an enjoyable Ealing comic adventure as the kids take on adult crooks and put themselves in jeopardy. Sim gives an amusing cameo.
Pictorially it is an interesting look at a London still suffering from the war. Most of the film was shot on location and the kids playgrounds were the bomb damaged buildings. During the climatic scenes there are some magnificent shots, taken from above, where it appears as though every kid in London is rushing through the streets to help capture the criminals.
Oddly enough, although very different, the movie had somewhat the same scenic look as THE THIRD MAN. Both were set in bomb damaged cities and in HUE AND CRY there is even a scene where the kids escape through the sewers of London, predating Harry Lime's famous scene in the sewers of Vienna.
North Americans may find the accents rather a deterrent but I think the film is well worth the effort.
The humour is more subtle and understated than in the later films, indeed one can feel the transition with the years through films such as The Magnet and The Maggie before we reach the true classics of the genre.
Finally, though many will link the name of the great Alastair Sim with Ealing Comedies, am I right in thinking that this, the first of the Ealing Comedies is the only one to feature him?
Alastair is better known working with other studios I believe.
A young teenager and his pals discover that a gang leader is using a "boy's magazine" (called a comic, but seemingly more of a pulp-fiction text magazine) to tell his gang what jobs to pull. At the expense of logic, this allows for a nice scene at the beginning where a boy is reading a story and the events he's reading about are simultaneously happening around him. This is billed as a comedy, and there are many amusing scenes. Sim, in a small part, is delightful as the innocent, swishy, eccentric writer of the magazine stories. And there fine comic touches, such as, when they stop to look in a store window while trailing someone, the seamstress inside sticks out her tongue. But, unexpectedly, it's as a noir film that this shines. Many scenes are filmed on-location in war-torn London. At one point the kids descend into the sewers to avoid arrest, and when it seems that they can't get out, one becomes hysterical. The lobby of Sim's building is a complete noir set. The finale, with the boy entering darkness to follow the villain, and their cat-and-mouse fight on the open floors of a bombed building is noir in every aspect; the setting, the action, the lighting, the whole style of filming. The fight is violent, and ends with the boy jumping from the floor above onto the villain's stomach, killing him. It's a brutal death for a man whose crime is handling hot furs, and who the boy had no "personal" reason to kill. These noir aspects are the most striking part of the film, and it might have been even better if they had been even stronger. As it is, this Ealing film is still one of the best British films of the immediate post-war period.
Forgotten, under seen or not very good? Either way Hue & Cry is a very important film in the pantheon of Ealing Studios. Blending comedy with that of a children's thriller, this would be the launching pad for the long string of Ealing classics that would follow. Nobody at the time would know of its importance, nor did head guru Micahel Balcon have ideas to steer the studio in the direction that it would take, thus practically inventing its own genre of film.
In truth, it's a scratchy film, admittedly one with moments of class and social hilarity, nifty set-ups and ever likable young actors, but it's a bit too wrought to fully work, the odd blend of comic book values and crime busting youths is never at one for a fully rounded spectacle. But the hints of greatness are there, an awareness of the times, the half bombed London backdrop, the send-ups of Hollywood conventions, and the irrepressible Alastair Sim a forerunner of many eccentrics to follow.
Hue & Cry is a fine and decent viewing experience, and perhaps it's harsh to judge it against "those" bona fide classics coming up along the rails? But really it's more for historical values to seek it out and it's not an Ealing film you would recommend to a newcomer wanting to acquaint themselves with that most brilliant of British studios. 6.5/10
¿Sabías que…?
- TriviaHarry Fowler later married fellow actress Joan Dowling, but sadly she committed suicide in 1954, aged just 26.
- ErroresWhen the kids are in the tunnels and using their torches, the circle of light from the torches don't match where they are actually pointing them.
- Citas
[Joe has pleaded with Wilkinson to write a story to entrap the crooks; Wilkinson will have to stay up all night to write it]
Felix H. Wilkinson: Oh, how I loathe adventurous-minded boys.
- Créditos curiososIn the opening credits, there appears on the wall a drawing of 'Chad', beside which is written WOT NO PRODUCER ?
The producer's name, Michael Balcon, appears in the next frame.
Selecciones populares
- How long is Hue and Cry?Con tecnología de Alexa
Detalles
- Tiempo de ejecución1 hora 22 minutos
- Color
- Relación de aspecto
- 1.37 : 1