There Is Another Sun

This engrossing 50s melodrama from British film icon Lewis Gilbert is colourfully set against the playfully boisterous backdrop of an especially raucous, rough n' tumble fun fair, populated with an engaging host of entertaining protagonists. Effectively playing out like a pulpy crime-noir, Gilbert's gutsy drama 'There is another Son' is happily replete with a lively text by writer Guy Morgan and the crisp B/W photography by Wilkie Cooper and Dudley Lovell is wonderfully cinematic, with resplendent set design by George Provis. Fundamentally a doomed ménage à trois with strikingly tall, darkly brooding 'Wall-of-Death' motorcyclist 'Eddie Racer'(Maxwell Reed) affable, warm-hearted, iron-fisted, up-and-coming boxer Mag Maguire (Laurence Harvey), and the lissome, luminous blonde dancer Lillian (Susan Shaw) glistens enticingly as the sublime object of their affections.

With plentiful pulse-pounding incident, amusing banter, break-neck, daredevil motorcycling, bravura fisticuffs, and swelteringly amorous clinches there's nary a dull moment! The self-absorbed machinations of Racer's increasingly criminal attempts to successfully finance his return to his former glory as top speedway racer inexorably draw sweet-natured Lillian and her gullible, deliciously handsome beau Mag Maguire into morally murky waters! Briskly directed by Lewis Gilbert, immaculately performed by a brilliant cast, with a rousingly lush score by Wilfred Burns, the heady, helter-skelter carny atmosphere of 'There is another Sun' is excitingly realized, the characters are sympathetic, and the frantic climax is suitably thrilling. While not oft remembered, this dynamic drama has one of Laurence Harvey's most effortlessly likeable performances, and his bruising bout with sturdy, real-life pugilist Nosher Powell has lost little of its impact!

Laurence Harvey is a tank fighter for Leslie Dwyer in a traveling carnival; Maxwell Reed is his pal, and a daredevil motorcycle rider in the same show. Susan Shaw is a chorus line dancer who falls in with them. Harvey is the man she has set her cap at, but Reed has some less-than-legal plans that keep drawing Harvey into danger, especially when policeman Meredith Edwards comes by, knowing more than he can prove; but of course all the carny folk close ranks against him.

There's a good deal of atmosphere in ths tale of carny life, and a sense of depression hangs over the production, especially when the audience can hear the cheery music of the calliope. There's a sense of alienation from the happy crowds that come in for a show, hoping that Harvey will have his brains spattered in a fight, or Reed killed in a stunt gone wrong. Can the men get out of this movie alive, and out of prison? With Hermione Baddeley, Earl Cameron, Eric Pohlmann, and Laurence Naismith.

No film with Maxwell Reed can be all bad. The director even used his height as a plot point - how can he hide in a crowd? Racer (Wall of Death) and Maguire (boxer) pick up Lilian (Susan Shaw) in a dodgy nightclub where they gamble away their savings. Racer wants to get back on the Speedway track, while Maguire wants to make it as a boxer. Meanwhile he falls in love with Lilian, but fears she has a thing for racer. The gruff trainer meanwhile is in love with the fortune teller - played to great effect by the wonderful Hermione Baddeley. "Your kabbalistic number is 69 and your lucky colour is blue - you're a Scorpio, I can tell!" The real star is the seedy background of the fair, the vans, and the grubby boarding house where Lilian is staying with a girlfriend - their show has closed and they're on their uppers. They still existed, with their Victorian furniture, in the 60s and 70s.

I think the early 1950s was an interesting time for British cinema. Hitchcock was making forgotten but intriguing efforts like STAGE FRIGHT while once in a while equally forgotten gems like DOUBLE CONFESSION seem to come along out of nowhere. Sadly THERE IS ANOTHER SUN, a morality tale centred around a big top circus, has little redeeming value for the modern viewer.

The best thing about it is that it paints a picture of the era, while the morals of the picture are fun to watch. The cast, including Laurence Harvey and Leslie Dwyer, give performances that can only be described as professional. A shame, then, that the story of a love triangle between a woman and two men and the subsequent small-scale crime just don't go anywhere. There's a plodding detective sub-plot and lots of worthiness, but the film just didn't hold my attention. That THERE IS ANOTHER SUN is so dull comes as a surprise when you consider director Lewis Gilbert went on to direct Bond classics like THE SPY WHO LOVED ME.

All three of the young leads in this movie died young within five years of each other during the 1970s. A bleak trawl of the lower depths recalling 'Nightmare Alley', it teams two of postwar British cinema's most saturnine bad boys and biggest quiffs, of whom only Maxwell Reed is deemed incapable of redemption (although Laurence Harvey's hero-worshipping of him does seem to go beyond mere admiration).

Wilkie Cooper's superb photography goes some way towards making the basic squalor of the subject palatable, while the supposedly poky little room unemployed 'showgirl' Susan Shaw rents looks luxuriously spacious by 21st Century standards.