I Believe in You

I just caught this relatively "minor" British postwar film on TV, and notwithstanding the slightly conservative and paternalistic attitudes noted by other reviwers, I found this an enjoyable and really charming experience, and there are some solid laughs to be had along the way.

Cecil Parker and Celia Johnson acquit themselves admirably as the two probation officers, but the real interest for me lies in the supporting cast. Most notable is the part of the delinquent teenage girl, Norma, played by future superstar Joan Collins in her first major credited screen role. She's not that great, let's be honest, but the camera loves her. Watch out for the beleaguered court sergeant, played by the legendary Sid James, making one of his first film appearances, two years before he became a household name on "Hancock's Half Hour".

A very young, rather chubby-faced, pre-fame Laurence Harvey features as a right bad'un, but the main male "juvenile" role is filled by the wonderful character actor Harry Fowler, a former London newspaper boy (and a direct contemporary of George Cole), who lucked into movies after being interviewed on radio about his experiences of working in London during WWII.

For film buffs, this movie is also really worth watching for several beautiful performances by the supporting cast. Perhaps the most notable among them is the great Ada Reeve, playing Mrs Crockett, an elderly former actress. Its a part that closely mirrored real life - Ada Reeve was in fact a major international stage and musical variety star in the Edwardian era, and there is one very poignant scene in which Mrs Crockett implores a reluctant Mr Phipps to look at her album, which turns out to contain real drawings and a vintage photo of Ada herself as a young star. Equally delightful is the wonderful cameo by the great Katie Johnson as the dotty Miss Macklin; like Ada Reeve, Katie was a veteran star of the British stage, who started out as a child actor in the late Victorian era. This is one of Johnson's relatively few film appearances; her best-known role came three years later with her luminous, BAFTA-winning star turn as sweet old landlady, Mrs Wilberforce, in the Ealing classic "The Ladykillers".

Also, watch out for a terrific cameo by Ursula Howell, playing the drunken, shoplifting society girl, "The Hon. Ursula". She's hilarious.

Despite the somewhat dated social content, this movie has a ton of charm, a good heart, and many lovely performances, both by younger actors on the cusp of future success, and some true veterans of the British stage. A surprisingly good movie.

Ealing was at it's most earnest when it decided to make probation officers the subjects of this film, entrusted to the reliable team of Dearden and Ralph (the latter's father actually featuring in the cast).

Cecil Parker for once gets a part of real substance as a former colonial administrator who quickly learns that there's a lot more to London than just Kensington and the West End, and is ably flanked by the lovely Celia Johnson. Future stars include a teenaged Joan Collins looking pretty the same as she still does, Sid James as a moustached police sergeant, Brenda De Banzie and dear old Katie Johnson as a batty old cat-lady. Ursula Howells is cast wildly against type as a drunken deb, Harry Fowler plays a tearaway with a chip on his shoulder, Lawrence Harvey is hilarious as a swaggering wide boy; but the most touching scene is easily depicting Parker discovered an extremely elderly Ada Reeve was once young.

When this film was being made a new class was forming in society that would have a powerful effect on the future,namely teenagers.To a certain extent they seem to be ignored altogether in this film.As a result all the usual eccentrics would be wheeled in to this film to show that nothing had changed.Katie Johnson and her cat could have been Mrs Wilberforce with her 5 musicians.The only sop to the younger generation are Joan Collins,Harry Fowler and Laurence Harvey.Now Fowler was a decent enough bloke but do you really think that she would prefer life with him to the passionate and dangerous affair with Harvey,i hardly think so.As other reviewers have noted the air of smug paternalism overwhelms this film,be it the magistrate or the Probation Officers or the Police.

"I Believe in You" is a semi-documentary film about the work of the British Probation Service; it was inspired by the success of the recent "The Blue Lamp", which told a similar story about the police. Henry Phipps, an officer in the Colonial Service recently made redundant, becomes a probation officer, and the film follows the progress of his career and the lives of some of his clients. Towards the end the film veers away from its documentary approach in favour of a greater "human interest" slant as two of Phipps' charges, Charlie Hooker and Norma Hart, become involved in a love-triangle. Charlie and Norma are both basically decent at heart, even if they are also wild and rebellious, but the third party to the triangle, Jordie Bennett, although handsome and flashy enough to turn Norma's head, is little more than a vicious thug.

One thing that comes across from the film is just how upper-middle-class the British Probation Service was in the early fifties. There was a widespread belief among the haute bourgeoisie at this period that they knew, far better than the working classes did themselves, just how the working classes should live their lives. (This attitude, by the way, was by no means confined to the political Right. The Labour leader Clement Attlee and several of his front-bench colleagues had been educated at public schools and this was the era when a Labour minister could reassure the people that "the Man in the Ministry really does know best"). Phipps is clearly a well-to-do gentleman who lives in a luxurious West End home, speaks with a public school accent and can cheerfully admit that he has never before visited any working class area of London. His colleague Mrs Matheson advises him not to go out on visits wearing his Savile Road suit and smart overcoat, fearing that the sight of such sartorial elegance will alienate his clients, but as "Matty" is played by Celia Johnson, an actress whose cut-glass accent could make a duchess sound like a guttersnipe, I felt that she might have paid more attention to the beam in her own eye.

Johnson has never been my favourite actress, but Cecil Parker succeeds in making Phipps a reasonably likable figure, well-meaning despite an occasionally patronising manner. Parker had a fairly small range as an actor, and at times could be very dull (as he was, for example, in "The Wreck of the Mary Deare") but this is one of his better performances. The film also features two young actors who were to go on to become major stars. Laurence Harvey is convincingly menacing as Jordie and Joan Collins, in one of her earliest film appearances, surprisingly good as Norma.

I say "surprisingly" because in recent decades, ever since Fontaine Khaled in "The Stud" and "The Bitch" and Alexis Carrington in "Dynasty", the idea has grown up that Collins was a one-trick pony who specialised in playing upper-class bitches, glamorous and seductive but fundamentally untrustworthy. In the earlier part of her career, however, she had a much greater range. She did, admittedly, take some unsympathetic parts in the fifties; Sadie in "Our Girl Friday" is a spoilt little minx and Joan's character in "Land of the Pharaohs" is essentially a younger Alexis transported back in time to ancient Egypt. Norma, however, is very different, and not merely because of her working-class background. She may have gone off the rails but remains a vulnerable young woman beneath her brassy, defiant exterior. This is why Phipps reassures her, in the words of the film's title, that "I believe in you".

For all its atmosphere of middle-class do-goodery, the film is actually quite professionally put together. It looks very dated from the viewpoint of 2016, but in 1952 it must have had considerable interest for film-goers. The cinema of this period, when it dealt with crime, generally did so in terms of retributive justice and a "cops good, robbers bad" attitude. "I Believe in You" showed audiences that there was another, more gentle side to the criminal justice system and that rehabilitation could be as important as punishment. 6/10

When this film was made England was still a society divided by class, one's accent, manners, clothes and speech defined one's background and determined one's future.

England was still recovering from WWII, many parts of London were still bomb sites, some food was still on ration, especially sweets, and although the manufacturer's catalogues were full of wonderful items that they were making, many were "For Export Only", essentially to the United States in payment for war loans.

Against this background of priviledge; for the upper class probation officer; and the difficult working class origins of the probationees; all set in war-ravaged London with as fine a collection of actors that could be assembled; I Believe in You is a minor classic of its time,one of the earliest films depicting real people and their problems rather than the glamourous lives of the movies the propaganda ministries wanted us to see.

Many of the outdoor locations show parts of London never before seen on the big screen, and these too provide interest for anyone interested in locations of movies.