La lampe bleue

For those of us on this side of the pond The Blue Lamp is like the striped pole for barbershops only in the United Kingdom it hangs above the entrance to police stations. The Blue Lamp is a story of a pair of helmeted beat cops working out of Paddington Station in London, one a fairly new recruit, the other an old timer thinking of retirement.

The roles are played by Jimmy Hanley and Jack Warner respectively. Hanley was a favored callow juvenile player, doing those roles way past the age he should have is an earnest young officer trying to do his best to make good on the job. Jack Warner who was a music hall performer as well plays the older officer, a kindly veteran who is married to Gladys Henson who both take a parental interest in young Hanley. Their own son had died, most likely in the recent World War. In fact in the shooting on location in London you can see many unpleasant reminders of the war in bombed out buildings, still not repaired or replaced by 1951.

While Hanley is being mentored by Warner, there are a couple of punks played by Dirk Bogarde and Patric Doonan who are busy themselves. They're not taken terribly seriously by really professional criminals. As the film is narrated in talking about wannabes like Bogarde and Doonan it reminded of what John Wayne said in The Shootist that the ones you have to watch out for are the hotheaded amateurs. That's these two in a nutshell.

The Blue Lamp was Bogarde's breakout role and he's charismatic to the nines. He's every young girl's idea of a bad boy they'd like to have a romp with before settling into respectable married life. Such a girl is Peggy Evans who is fascinated by Bogarde and his disrespect for conventional behavior. Look at the home she comes from and you can see why she wants to escape.

The Blue Lamp won the BAFTA award which is the UK equivalent of the Oscar for Best Picture for 1951. It made Dirk Bogarde an enduring star in British cinema and it's a nice tribute to the London Metropolitan Police Force.

This was made just five years after the end of the second world war. Some old folk I spoke to as a kid told me that when they were kids there were no gangs of youths on the streets: there were gangs of men. After the second world war, we began to see the emergence of youth crime. It has grown since then, practically spiralling out of control.

When we look at this film from the frame of reference of the early twenty-first century, this film where the London underworld joins with the police to track down the killer of a policeman looks unreal. If you have read any of the reminiscences of police officers of the period (such as Robert Fabian's "Fabian of the Yard") you will see that this sort of relationship between the police and the underworld is right on the button. This is the sort of thing that would have happened.

The type of policing that this film portrays belongs to a bygone era, when criminals often didn't have cars to make their getaways. It also shows the advantage of the beat copper, who knows his beat so well that if there is anything unusual he notes it down, and if there is any trouble, he has a fair idea of who is causing it. And the pair played by Jimmy Hanley and Jack Warner showed perfectly the inexperienced learning from the experienced. The situations, such as the costermonger being continually told to "move along there" are real for then but not for now, when police work, once done using discretion, is now, like everything else, done by bureaucracy.

The film is shot in north London, in the Paddington, Maida Vale and Westbourne Park areas. P C Dixon's beat is round by the Grand Union Canal in an area known as Little Venice. The police station is the old Paddington Green station, which has since been knocked down and replaced by a new one on the Edgware Road.

What you must not do is watch this film and judge it by today's standards. I am old enough to know that the social conditions portrayed in this film are as realistic as it gets; and so is the way the police operate.

An excellent film.

When the Blue Lamp was released i was around 3 years old.I therefore do remember the London that it shows.To me the film is more interesting in what it reveals about the London of 1950 than the actual story.It shows the Metropolitan Music hall in the Edgware Road.It was in the last few years of its life before the A4 cutting a swathe into London meant that it was demolished for "progress".Music Hall by this time was in its last throes and what was left would be rendered extinct by the arrival of ITV.We see the Colloseium in Harlesden.Every High Street had cinemas like this.If you look carefully you will see that they were showing "Granny Get Your Gun" a 1940 "B" feature with May Robson.So it was probably a second run house.There are the bomb sites.I remember that in certain parts of London,particularly the East End there mere were more such sites than actual buildings.The streets do not have a great deal of traffic as there was little traffic at that time.So a film of some sociological interest

THE BLUE LAMP is a very famous and popular British film , so popular that it paved the way for an equally famous TV show called DIXON OF DOCK GREEN but it's also a film that hasn't stood the test of time , in fact it's so dated it was satarized in an excellent post modernist teleplay called THE BLACK AND BLUE LAMP in 1988 and after recently seeing this movie I realise that it's a very easy target

First of all is the portrayal of the police . Policemen in the 1950s spent their time taking home lost children , looking for dogs that had run away from their owners and practicing their baritone in the station choir ! Good job the crime rate was so low back then because - just like today - they'd never be able to catch criminals . At least watching THE BLUE LAMP you realise why the cops would never be able to catch crims because they seem to smoke over 100 cigarettes a day , no seriously they do and it's pointed out that PC Mitchell doesn't smoke and that's probably why he's able to sprint after Riley at the end with all the other cops at the station destined to die from lung cancer due to the amount of ciggies they smoke . If you've just given up the weed it's a bad idea to watch this movie

As in so many other movies from this period the " adolescent " characters are played by actors far too old for the roles . Diana Lewis is quoted as being 17 years old on screen but Peggy Evans who plays her is in fact 25 years old and she looks it , and while the ages of Riley and Spud are never mentioned it's inferred they're not older than 21 , but Patric Doonan and Dirk Bogarde are both in their late 20's while the " twenty five year old Pc Mitchell " is played by Jimmy Hanley who was in his early 30s . It's strange but people in those days all look considerably older than the real ages

To give the film its due the climax where Riley finds himself at the stadium being hunted is rather exciting , and " exciting " is not something British films of that era were renowned for . Some people may criticise the idea of dodgy characters going out of their way to help the police but this is logical since the police may return the favour at a later date in not asking too many questions about things falling off the back of lorries .

All in all THE BLUE LAMP is a strange film when watched today . It's certainly not a film for cynics and comes across as being very mawkish and sentimental with almost a fairy tale like air . But it should be remembered that in those days a person being murdered during a crime would make national news headlines while a policeman killed in the line of duty would lead to several days national mourning , and of course in those days the police were - If not popular - certainly far more respected than policeman today could ever hope to be so you have to view this film in the context of when it was made . Ironically enough it's also the first movie to use the word " bastard "

It's interesting that the robbery and shooting that is the subject of this movie doesn't even occur until almost 45 minutes into the film. This really isn't a complain, really, but more a statement about how the film was constructed. Instead of a typical linear film with a predictable format, this one is instead a realistic drama that emphasizes the routines and typical police work instead of a single crime. And, once the crime occurs, watching the police work was at times mundane and lacked the pizazz of some films but also made the film excel when it comes to realism. Stylistically, some might call it Noir or Noir Inspired--but the film deliberately avoids the lighting, language and grit of true Noir.

As for the acting, it generally was excellent. The policemen were very good--not overly glamorized or macho--but very believable. So, when the widow receives word that her husband died from his injuries, you feel very touched--he was a "real" person and not just a plot device. In fact, this scene was truly exceptional. The killer, Dirk Bogarde, is in one of his first films and is much better than I would have expected--he was menacing and a truly nasty piece of work! The only negative was Peggy Evans, as Bogarde's girlfriend. First, she was supposed to be 17 but was 25--and looked every bit of 25, if not more. Second, I think the director must have told her to scream incoherently if she didn't know what to do in a particular scene, as she did this a lot--too much, frankly.

Overall, it's a darn good police film. Realism seemed to matter over everything else and it was refreshing to see. In many ways, it reminded me of the American film, NAKED CITY, as the everyday police work and procedure was THE star of the film. Highly underrated and well worth seeing.