Sempre Chove aos Domingos

A rather splendid 1947 b/w film from the Ealing Studios. I find a lot of these films a little too sentimental and the acting a bit too stagey but this is a real surprise. Great dialogue, convincingly conveyed and together with super cinematography combine to make this a truly enjoyable if nostalgic view. The locations are more Camden than the East End, except for glimpses of Whitechapel at the start but no matter, it all looks good and the views of the railway marshalling yard at the end quite stunning. There is a central story but is is intercut with others and the whole thing bounces along nicely. Even the kids are all right and the amusing bits still amusing. Really though this is a very believable view of London's East End just after the war. Bomb sites, rationing and everyone trying to make the most of what they had. Also there was a feeling that the cops and robbers weren't really that different from each other, just on different sides and the important thing was to survive. Well worth a watch.

A superb study by Ealing studios, of a working class family, in the east end of London, after the 2nd World War. Googie Withers plays a harassed housewife, who during one Sunday lunchtime, discovers that her old boy friend, Tommy Swan, has broken out of jail and is in need of help.Local policeman Jack Warner is given the task of hunting him down. This film gives the viewer a fascinating look at life in England, in the late 1940's and early 50's. Look out for one scene, featuring the milkman, delivering milk, and his horse, walking up the centre of the street, and knowing just when to stop and when to go. Well worth watching.

Film Noir defies definition, plenty disagree whether its a movement, genre, style. Perhaps its more usefully conceived as a sensibility, a world view, an attitude. In which case the words pessimism, determinism ie characters lacking choice their lives are predetermined, doom, gloom, the past coming back to affect the present all spring to mind. Its possible to see a cycle of films with remarkably consistent features in terms of visual style emerging in U.S primarily and to a lesser extent the U.K and France in the forties and fifties. While most noir films have a male as the central protagonist, a male who is invariably weak and flawed, a number of these films, such as Mildred Pierce, have a female protagonist. Noir manifested itself differently in Britain, combining with elements of what was to become known as kitchen sink or social realism and frequently concerned with social class.

This film uses the claustrophobic interiors of the terraced house to great effect. The noir style of long shadows, oblique angles, becomes more evident in the final climax, not really needed early on since the interiors work effectively without lighting effects. Melancholia drips through this like the rain of the title, Googie Withers is terrific, her face a mask of dreams, desires pushed away, disappointment etched over her features through her hard make up. How different she is in appearance to the femmes fatales of the U.S movies, bustling round the kitchen in her pinafore, then later on the almost military smartness of her utility dress when she attends Tommy. As a character shes every bit as strong however as her American counterparts. Like Mildred Pierce, she's strong in a domestic setting, when the usual convention for women in noir is to take them out of the domestic, placing them typically as nightclub singers or gangsters molls. In details I ll acknowledge this is on occasions cheesy and dated. Scratch at the surface however and its a fascinating exploration of the social tensions emerging after World War Two. How were people to adjust to life in peacetime? Were they able to return to the rigidly prescribed roles they d had prior to the war? Ealing studios produced a number of films which now can be seen to share many affinities with American Film Noir, this is one of the most interesting and rewarding.

"London Live" t.v. channel no 8 are currently showing a season of Ealing Films and not just the well known comedies for which they were better known.I had obviously seen these comedies but on 1st June 2015 I saw "It Always Rains on Sunday" (1947) for the first time.I was familiar with Googie Withers from the time of her support role to Margaret Lockwood in the Hitchcock film "The Lady Vanishes" (1938).Talking of this great director one James Hitchcock has given a definitive user review dated 7/9/05 (first above) which satisfactorily explains the plot and other production values for which I commended him.Yes the film set rain machine was very much in evidence to add verisimilitude to the film title.A few reviewers from foreign parts I notice had an understandable problem with the London vernacular accents but it was obviously produced with the home market in mind as were many American movies.Being a 69 year old Londoner myself I understood all the East End dialogue, having worked in Stratford near Bethnal Green myself.In line with IMDb.com general average I rated it 7/10.

The film was made and set in the bleak environment of post-war east London and shows Robert Hamer to be an extremely talented and sophisticated film maker. Unlike Dearden and Relph, Hamer does not impose a moral framework on his characters. The film shows two sides of adultery between Googie Withers and the escaped convict and between her daughter and a Jewish shopkeeper. What makes this film stand out is its intentioned 'realism' and complex character portrayals. This little known classic is probably one of Ealing's finest films.