West 11

While trying to create a stylish British film noir, Michael Winner unwittingly created an existentialism masterpiece! Only those armed with such expectations will feel that their time is not wasted. Those expecting kitchen sink drama or noir will very probably yawn throughout.

As such, acting in this movie serves its purpose and helps open up the world of boredom, hope and individual aspirations and disappointments. Nicely shot, slowly-paced and with a decent period music deployed to show adequately gloomy passtime activities of the W11 youth and pub-goers of the early 60's, the film satisfies all the criteria required for it to fit into the existentialism category.

This low-key British kitchen-sink movie is much better than it's lukewarm reputation might suggest. It's no masterpiece and it's certainly no "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" or "A Taste of Honey" but it's far from negligible and is worth seeing. It was directed by Michael Winner at a time when he actually made good films and stars the underrated Alfred Lynch as a feckless young man roped into a murder plot by Eric Portman's slimy and possibly bogus ex-army officer. Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall wrote the above average screenplay and it's superbly shot in its Notting Hill locations by Otto Heller. Others in a fine supporting cast include Diana Dors, Kathleen Harrison and Finlay Currie.

Maybe it's because I don't much like Alfred Lynch or Michael Winner films generally, but this film dragged terribly. For me, it was only worth watching for the end credit music played beautifully by Mr Acker Bilk, a haunting piece somewhat reminiscent of Bilk's own 'Bitter Harvest' theme. There were some great 'kitchen sink' films made in Britain in the late 50's and early 60's, but this doesn't make the grade.

A minor but very smoothly made example of British film noir. Director Michael Winner, then at the start of his career, had a strong cast (Alfred Lynch, Eric Portman, Diana Dors, Finlay Currie, et al) to inhabit this starkly photographed little crime melodrama set in London bedsit-land, all tacky Notting Hill coffee bars and smoky jazz clubs.

Lynch makes a downbeat but sympathetic protagonist, more thoughtful than the usual type of hero. Portman plays the clipped-moustache ex-military man-turned-swindler to perfection. Dors is just right, too, as a blousy divorcée ("Young enough to still want a husband; old enough not get the one I want").

Winner plays up the salacious sex element a bit, but a tight Keith Waterhouse/Willis Hall script touches on Lynch's Catholic guilt, and Currie's existential search for 'truth', just enough to give the story a modicum of depth. There's also an evocative score by Stanley Black, with Acker Bilk on sax.

Until latterly a neglected, even scorned, cinema sub-genre, these usually low-budget British film noirs, often superbly photographed, were violent by the standards of their day, and showed the rain-washed streets of cities like Newcastle (Payroll), Manchester (Hell Is a City) and Brighton (Jigsaw), as well as London, could be pretty mean, too.

Winner's next film, The System with Oliver Reed, was even better.

Clearly a lesser known entry in the 'Angry Young Man" Brit flick dramas of the early 60s. Like This Sporting Life, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, Look Back in Anger et al, it's all generational conflict and post war miserabilism.

This new realism wore itself out as the 60s really took hold and for many, things did change and improve. Perhaps the young lead Alfred Lynch didnt make it as Harris or Finney did, but he sustained a career over decades. Here he is supported by some stalwarts of British cinema (Kathleen Harrison, Eric Portman and Finlay Currie) and even the poor young actress (Kathleen Breck) saddled with the role of 'tart' which says everything about the double standard of the time and nothing about the character herself. But as is so often the case, the standout for talent and charisma is the much missed Diana Dors.

Despite her Rank charm school beginnings, her natural acting talent easily makes the most of the ever so slightly ageing good time girl role she has. Her charisma makes her the most compelling of all the players. Star quality that never left her.

Its not great, but its worth a watch, if only as a reasonably authentic period piece. The Director Michael Winner had more commercial success, but this may be as a good a film as he ever made.