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.

The beginning of the 1960's introduced a lot of interesting British films, and in my opinion ' West 11 ' is one of the finest. Alfred Lynch was one of the best actors of this period and arguably he was not given enough roles as fine as this. Michael Winner is not among my favourite directors, but somehow he captured well the life of ordinary young people of the pre-swinging sixties London extremely well. The acting is top notch and so is the depiction of the Notting Hill Gate area. By 2024 standards it looks basic but then again ordinary people could afford to live there. The story is simple; a young man tired of routine jobs falls in with a richer man played excellently by Eric Portman who wants to murder his wife, and homes in on Alfred Lynch to do it. Without being at all sensationalist we witness the consequences. The script is finely written, and among the other actors Diana Dors is moving as a woman who feels she can no longer rely on her looks, but does so with stoical resignation. I have no idea why this film is underrated, as it is again in my opinion as good if not better than trendy films such as ' Look Back in Anger ' and ' A Taste of Honey' which I thought were badly cast. An essential London film.

With writers who were at the heart of the British new wave and set in a run down Notting Gill,as it was,I was expecting a touch of social realism.However what we get is a film that after much coveting of an X certificate,tends to go into lurid melodrama in the last third.However it was good to see Kathleen Harrison and Frieda Jackson,Finlay Currie and of course Diana Dors.A cast to cherish even if the film is not

It's very interesting, made before the 'swinging sixties' but just after the 'kitchen sink' this was Winner's first significant film although his first had been Play it Cool (1962) staring Billy Fury and Helen Shapiro. Keith Waterhouse worked on the script which is really good and most of the location around Notting Hill Gate. There are some shots around London especially Kensington Gardens and even a great view of Kenwood House in the snow. Much of the scenes are in the snow which I seem to remember in that very cold winter. As the story begins an ex-army officer tries to get the young guy to bump off his old aunt to get her money. (When he first meets him to try and tell him his plan it is in a Wimpy!) We later see him go to Paddington and even down to Corfe Castle in Dorset and the killing attempt is short but rather thrilling. Winner really does do well here and only about 28. I think it looks as there was only one scene in the studio although I'm not sure about the party and dance scenes although we even see Una Stubbs, probably her first film as she's on her knees at a party and a glimpse of Mike Leigh. There is much more than a glimpse, well about 60 seconds and no talking and no mention in the credits but we clearly see David Hemmings as a young hoodlum. Great fun.

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.