Who payed the critics

Boring

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

"Hue and Cry", one of the earliest and freshest of the Ealing comedies, now has that look of what my children and grandchildren call "the olden days" rather than yesteryear. What more fascinating document to capture the look of London in the immediate post war period for historians! Because this is escapist fare no mention is made of the blitz. Bombsites are presented as one vast amusement park where the youngsters of the film cavort and have fun. In Britain during the 'forties filmmakers were going great guns on escaping the studios for interesting locations, albeit, in this case, acres of debris. For a climax the chase was the big thing and what better than bringing the goodies and the baddies together for one massive punch up in a bomb damaged urban landscape, location work that more than makes up for some pretty phony looking studio backdrops in places. "Hue and "Cry" is a hugely enjoyable romp in which a gang of youngsters led by the engagingly cockney Harry Fowler take on and eventually foil a gang of crooks led by laughing mastermind Jack Warner after discovering that their favourite 'penny dreadful' is being used as the means to convey instructions for criminal activities. Because almost everyone enjoyed a caricature in those days, there is the larger than life Alistair Sim to provide that added dimension of playful eccentricity in the person of the innocent writer who is completely unaware of the use to which his stories are being put. It all leads via a scene in the London sewers, predating "The Third Man", to the glorious climax where all the boys of the capital and one girl descend, quite literally in one case, on the baddies. And what better to round it all off than a shot of angelic choirboys, bandaged, black eyed and gap toothed,singing "Oh! for the Wings of a Dove!"

I particularly enjoyed seeing London in its derelict state after WW2, I remember my parents taking me there in those days and seeing piles of bricks everywhere. It was amusing to read a review by an American academic whose main complaint was that the children were all white and there should have been a better balance with black children. I wonder where he thought Ealing Studios might have found such people in 1946/7 - the Empire Windrush did not arrive at Tilbury until June 1948. Indeed looking at the devastation in London in the film it is amazing that Ealing could make anything. This is something that i watched as a kid and have seen many, many times again.

This comedy centres on the young Harry Fowler and chums as an astute lad in postwar London. Among the ruins of such, the film vividly captures that era and of course engaging British stereotypical 'urchins' with their scruffbag looks and grey shorts!Jack Warner excellently departs from his famous 'PC Dixon' role (although that was two years later) as a neat villain, coaxing Joe Kirby (Fowler) all along, when the unsuspecting oik is filling him in on what he's found - that of a criminal plot that actually involves Warner! The plot and help for the criminals has been found with clues printed in a comic called 'The Trump' that Joe and his chums studiously read and await with anticipation every week (Remember those days before computers?).On unmasking this plot, when Joe unknowingly, trusts Warner who then kidnaps him, the chums manage to 'shanghai' a radio station microphone and set out the call: "Calling all boys - go to (Can't remember location!) for an adventure!" the next scene shows boys dropping everything - literally, the boy drops his mum's shopping, another's about to kiss a girl and runs off, etc! Excellent scene! It turns out one of the comic's staff was obviously in on it, and there's a nice scene where the boys tie her up, and set out to torture her for the information - this isn't as bad as it sounds, they can't really bring themselves to be vicious, so she's seen being tickled by a feather on her feet! Not impressed or bothered at all, one of the boys brings out his mouse - and 'being a woman',she squeals in more ways than one! Although that sounds like an easy scene it was quite amusing! The 'boys' who do have a girl among them as I recall, are seen jumping the crooks, with fisticuffs in British style, with 'fists of tapioca' as reviewer/journalist Clive James once described hits to the face in Saturday morning cinema style! On that point, although the film is 61 years old, I saw this in the late 1960's at Saturday morning pictures and it's stuck in my mind ever since! Nice thought to carry to your deathbed of your own kindred youth!

Sometimes a film is worth it just because of an accident. In this case the accident is that the Germans (not the Nazis, the Germans) had decimated large parts of London, and we had that as a set for this little drama.Its a great little story too, perfect for this very successful notion of noir light.Its the old fold: writer writes and the fictional becomes real. The only concession to reality — which incidentally allows it to be inserted into the noir world — is that what the writer writes is tampered with on the way to the book.One scene toward the beginning is particularly nice, where a boy reading a comic sees the same thing in reality. I recommend "How to Murder Your Wife" as a much better entry in this minigenre. But this is good too. At least the first half. The second half (after the great, really great sewer scene) is a sort of noir Bowery Boys gets their man.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.