Saloon Bar

Bought this great movie recently. It is out now on DVD and is one of the four movies on -"The Ealing Studios Rarities Collection - Volume 10". (The other 3 titles are: The Divided Heart, His Excellency & Let's Be Famous)

Network have done a terrific job on putting out this wonderful series of the lesser known movies from the Ealing Studio.

Don't miss this one. The period atmosphere is spot on. Anyone who knows the Salisbury pub in St Martin's Lane will feel right at home here. There are even roaring fires.

Gordon Harker and Mervyn Johns stand out in a superb cast and you will have great fun trying to work out Whodunnit!

It is presented here in a lovely, newly restored print too.

As I said before....DON'T miss this one !

A forgotten comedy-drama from Ealing that rarely puts a foot wrong as it deftly picks its way between a number of plot holes and pays no heed to the implausibilities of its storyline. Gordon Harker is on good form as a bookie who leads an investigation by the locals of a pub into the wrongful murder conviction of one of their locals (played by Martin Clunes' Dad) who is scheduled for execution the following day. Mervyn Johns quietly tries to steal the film as that staple of the British local - the regular with his own bar stool.

I watched an absolutely charming piece of British ensemble called of all things "Saloon Bar" (1940), with Gordon Harker, Mervyn Johns, Elizabeth Allan, Joyce Barbour, Anna Konstam, Cyril Raymond, Judy Campbell, and others (among whom is a very young pre-teen Roddy McDowall. Taking place basically in a single setting on Christmas Eve or thereabouts, in an evidently pre-war bar, the ostensible idea behind this piece is to save a young man from being hanged in the morning for a murder he didn't commit. But - how to prove it... This began as a play written by Frank Harvey (who also contributed to the screenplay) and then was put on the screen by Angus MacPhail and Jon Dighton. This is one of the four films on Volume 10 of the Ealing Studios Rarities series put out in Britain in the last few years (total of 14 volumes). Mervyn Johns sits on his bar stool during the entire film without moving, drinking, and making wry and sarcastic comments endlessly, deliciously. Elizabeth Allan is Queenie, a bar tending girl the hapless accused was seeing before his sentence. A competing bartendress from another establishment is Judy Campbell. The landlord of the bar where nearly all of the action takes place has an expectant wife upstairs, and it seems that she's been bearing first a boy, then a girl, then a boy, then a girl, in alternate years for some time now. Meanwhile, between endless quaffs of endless Lion ale, Gordon Harker is trying to figure out who really murdered the old lady the young man on death row is accused of killing. If all this sounds, perhaps, somewhat predictable, maybe even stagnant, or boring - trust me, it isn't in the least. It crackles with wit and wonderful acting and direction and atmosphere. It is indelibly British, the definition of it for Americans who think they know what that means, but who really don't. If you're into what pre-World War II Britain was like, this is the essence, a time and a culture that just doesn't exist anymore at all, but which is captured here in a water drop under the spyglass perfectly. Simply great!

That it was directed by Walter Forde and starred Gordon Harker led me to expect a comedy, and it's certainly played with tongue in cheek, as well as frequently earthy touches (the plot nonchalantly throwing in both prostitution and bigamy).

Obviously based on a play, it never leaves the studio, but the material is lively enough (and atmospherically photographed by Ronald Neame) for it not to matter.

The fact that the plot depends upon the novelty value of pound notes dates it (as does the barrel organ heard outside on the street); while the murder itself recalls the Oscar Slater case of 1908. Amidst the large cast, Harker, Mervyn Johns, Eliot Makeham and Felix Aylmer were plainly never young. But the film's age is also signalled by the extreme youth of Martin Clunes' father Alec (who died fifty years ago), Roddy McDowall popping up under an umbrella as a little boy singing carols; and Mavis Villers, still propping up a bar over twenty years later in 'Victim'.

Supporting the rest of the reviews, this is a lovely little film, really worth watching (I've seen it twice). Indeed the story doesn't really matter, it is the pleasure of watching a tight knit cast who all seemed to be enjoying their work! Gordon Harker was brilliant as was Mervyn Johns, slightly out of the type of character he became better known for later in his career. There were no well known 'stars' just an ensemble of good character actors given a chance to shine.

The film, although released in 1940 is clearly set before the war as apart from anything else, all lights in the pubs were blazing away and there was no mention of the war and no sign of the blitz which started in September 1940.

A little light relief then and now!