No Trees in the Street

No Trees in the Street is directed by J. Lee Thompson and adapted from his own play by Ted Willis. It stars Sylvia Syms, Herbert Lom, Ronald Howard, Melvyn Hayes and Stanley Holloway. Music is by Laurie Johnson and cinematography by Gilbert Taylor.

Capturing a young tearaway, a London copper tells the youngster a story from a couple of decades earlier. It's about a family living in the slums of the East End, of a pretty daughter getting involved with the local racketeer, of the young impressionable son turning to crime, it's of their fates, trials and tribulations.

Part kitchen sink plotter, part noir melodrama, No Trees in the Street is thin on story but big on heart. Ted Willis is guilty of not fully pushing the drama through in his adaptation, getting caught between making a potent anti-crime piece and that of a mawkish "we had it tough back then" nostalgia trip.

That said, the tale does hold tight throughout, and all the characters are nicely drawn and placed within a depressingly real backdrop. The means, motives and decisions involving some of them are cutting, keeping the narrative edgy, while the cast performances are bang on the money for such a screenplay. Bonus comes with Taylor's (Ice Cold in Alex/Repulsion) photography, which come the second half of film dresses it all up in noir nirvana. 6/10

The story is much used – a family being dragged down by their dead end street – but this one stands up okay. Hetty (Sylvia Sims) is caught between tearaway brother Michael (Melvyn Hayes) and smoothy gangster Wilkie (Herbert Lom). While Ronald Howard's Frank dances a fine line between being a cop and supporting his neighbourhood.

A decent story develops as Frank, Michael & Wilkie weave in and out of Hetty's life. The film introduces a number of rich supporting characters to complement the story.

The actors measure their roles well although Hayes' emotion tends to grate. Lom is the pick as the gangster who can switch between menacing and tender without any difficulty.

7 out of 10

Melvyn Hayes plays Tommy, a teenager who is only to readily lead astray by Herbert Lom's character 'Wilkie'. Tommy's sister (Sylvia Syms) tries to help Tommy whilst being a love interest for Wilkie. Shot on a budget, but well-adapted for cinema, this is several steps above an average kitchen sink drama of the time.

Hayes' performance is slightly overwrought, Lom's is accomplished, and Syms' is surprisingly sensitive.

Interesting that the new high-rise flats of the time were deemed 'better' than the old back to backs.... but now things have turned full circle and the high rises are coming down in favour of more conventional streets once more.

Overall an interesting period piece, worth watching.

I wanted to watch this having just seen J Lee Thompson's earlier one of Diana Dors in Yield to the Night (1956). This is not quite as good as that one but it was much better than I thought it might have been. It was surprisingly good that the East End slums were made to be more realistic than sentimental. The screenplay was by Ted Willis from his original play and with great dialogue. Of course Herbert Lom is impressive, even if I didn't expect he would have been in a kitchen sink drama. Sylvia Syms is also good although I did find the young Melvyn Hayes was rather annoying and I had never really liked him such as in Summer Holiday (1963) or many of his many TV series like, It Ain't Half Hot Mum (1974-1981) but I suppose he just about holds it together in this. Stanley Holloway is great and almost sings more than talks and certainly does in this and he could certainly do his authentic Cockney voice.

Ted Willis was hardly at the edge of social realism after all it was he who introduced us to Dixon of Dock Green.Whilst the works of Pinter,Osborne and Whitehouse live on Willis is totally forgotten.This film was clearly intended to latch on to this trend and fails miserably.The film has poor attention to detail.The film is supposed to be set in the thirties but all styles are contemporary to the time of filming in the fifties.The film is studio bound and lends to the air of artificiality.The film commits the cardinal sin,it fails to entertain.