The Moon Over the Alley

An adventurous and experimental film, clearly made for little money and set in London's Notting Hill area. The primary setting is a local boarding house and the mix of residents reflects the multicultural population of the immediate area. It is well put together with some fine shots and extremely believable interaction with what must have been a largely non professional cast. There are a few oddities to spoil or enliven the experience, depending upon your point of view. I could have done without the tramps and their devotion to the moon over the alley and if that does not seem sacrilegious enough, I have to say I could also have done without the music of Galt McDermott (Hair). The sentimental element and uninspired soundtrack detract from what is for me an otherwise endearing film reflecting enormous changes beginning all around the city. Location wise there are some tremendous shots of the main drag of Portobello Road with and without market stalls as well as of some surrounding streets and is a must for anyone interested in seeing the big and small differences with how things are today. So, a film packed with interesting characters, illustrating a kind of life that barely exists now in London, and peppered with an incident of two, some working better than others.

Caught The Moon Over the Alley on the BFI channel. The BFI's offerings are usually pretty hit or miss as to how good or bad the films are, with some real classics and some real duds. And The Moon Over the Alley was definitely a dud IMO.

The film is set in late 1970's London in the Notting Hill section. Back then, from what I've read and not being a resident of London, Notting Hill was down and out back then. Kind of like the East Village in NYC. The movie centers on the boarding house of a German couple and the surrounding neighborhood's working class, hippies, artist and the just plain marginal homeless. I got through about the first 20 minutes or so, but then the barely passable songs every five and the strained attempt for verisimilitude got wearing. I fast forwarded to the end - and this is where the movie went from quirky to nasty. There ensue a couple of scenes of violence and sexual assault that were jarring from the prior tempo of the film. It just threw the whole film off, IMO. And thus my low rating and caution before viewing this low budget, amateurish film.

Amateurish 1975 filmusical from Joseph Despins, a young Canadian working in Britain, "Moon Over the Alley" is an embarrassing attempt to inject "realist" approaches to this fantasy genre. Crudely shot on a tiny BFI-generated budget, pic once again demonstrates that realistic representations on screen come after hard work and construction, not taking a camera on location and using nonactors or semi-pros.

With the pretense of showing a slice of life on London's Portobello Road, William Dumaresq's script introduced a motley group of personages in Bertha Gusset's boardinghouse. When not bursting into maudlin, middle of the road songs (which sound like '60s rejects) by Galt MacDermot, the cast bickers in best "kitchen sink" tradition. Stereotypes abound: teenage lovers whose parents object; struggling family from Jamaica; drunken Irish barman and his bar dancer girl; local joint-smoking "hippies".

To pave the way for a heavy-handed building demolition ending, the film suddenly drops its cute pose and segues into contrived violence, a definite novelty for a musical (other than Ken Russell's "Tommy").

Underrehearsed, one-take cast is awkward, though Erna May as Gusset is amusing in her German lady in Britain routine. Pro cameraman Peter Hannan ("Slade in Flame", "Full Circle") delivers studied expressionistic lighting inside the boardinghouse and eye-straining low light out in the alley. The BFI Production Board aims to encourage young talent, but there's little talent on display here.

My review was written in September 1980 after a screening at Columbus Circle's Paramount theater as part of a British Film Now series.