London Belongs to Me

Good but not great story of group of characters living in a London boarding house in 1938. The story begins well and then starts to meander all over the place with the ending so weird that it borders on the surreal. Standout performances by Alastair Sim, right around the time of A Christmas CAROL, and Faye Compton as the widow he entrances. Hugh Griffith pops in late in the film to chew the scenery and bring a few chuckles. The cinematography is good and a nightmare sequence reminds one of DEAD OF NIGHT. There is a warmth about the film, one that was made in 1948 and looks back at London ten years earlier, that should appeal to all Londoners as well as Anglophiles around the world. A good film for a rainy afternoon with a"cuppa" and a scone.

Having achieved success in 'Brighton Rock', Dickie Attenborough now carved out a career for himself as a bland English actor with the aid of John Mills. I'm not sure what exactly audiences saw in what he brought to the screen but he certainly didn't have cross over appeal.

It's all about a house and its tenants of very variable kinds, the last one moving in being a confused spiritualist somehow falling out of everything (Alastair Sim in an unforgettable character, later copied by Alec Guinness in "Ladykillers"), while the main character is Richard Attenborough as a young irresponsible luck-seeker without any luck, courting the daughter of the house while his former mistress won't leave him alone, which leads to the tragedy. The house becomes a web of intrigue and complications, the different destinies interlacing each other, leading to confusions and further tragedies - Alastair Sim is really the unluckiest of them all. A fabulous gallery of colorful actors, Stephen Murray and a young Hugh Griffith making a surprise entrance towards the end is just two of them, the idyll develops into a spectacular drama finally involving all London. It's a wonderful story with great warmth and empathy with its characters, almost like a documentary. Unfortunately I haven't read the novel, which should be even better. This is a must see for grass-root people, environmentalists, humanitarians and all defenders of the small people of narrow circumstances and humble conditions, making out the great majority of the ordinary harmless core of humanity.

Richard Attenborough leads a somewhat disjointed cast in this rather lengthy drama. He is "Percy", a rather impressionable young man who lives with his beloved mother (Gladys Henson) in a boarding house amidst a host of interesting lodgers. Sadly for him, he is soon mixed up with the wrong sort - some small time hoodlums - and becomes a murder suspect. I suppose the house to be a metaphor for the broader United Kingdom following the end of WWII - a collection of the aspirational, the optimistic, and the resigned - but there are too many characters for us to keep tabs on, and though the efforts from Alastair Sim as the Dickensianly titled "Mr. Squales"; Stephen Murray, the lovely Fay Compton ("Mrs. Josser") and a superb series of scenes, rather late in the day, from Hugh Griffith all stand up fine on their own, the film as a combination piece is pretty much all over the place. Attenborough tries hard, and at times he does fire on all cylinders, but he isn't quite good enough to pull all the strands together, nor is the Sidney Gilliat direction/screenplay, so it can come across as just a little too much of an episodic compendium of loosely connected stories rather than a cohesive feature. Still, it does provide us with quite an interesting observation of post war London and of a way of communal life now (mercifully) long gone for most of us.

This film seems by turn to be a comedy,a drama,a romantic film,and a horror film.There are so many different styles in this film.Likewise the acting,from the restrained Wylie Watson to the wildly over the top Alistair Sim and Hugh Griffiths.You then add in the nightmare suffered by Richard Attenborough whilst awaiting trial,which seems to have been inspired by Dead Of Night.At times this film feels as if it has been written by such diverse talents as Noel Coward and Terence Ratigan.Attenborough as usual plays a bit of a coward and it is really hard to sympathise with his predicament.A really strange film.Although quite long it nevertheless holds the viewer as you don't know what is going to happen next.