Rent Hue and Cry (1947)

Ealing Whimsy. - Hue and Cry review by Steve

This is usually called the first Ealing comedy. It was mostly aimed at children (I think), though it's unlikely such an audience is still viable. Now it's an eccentric and cheerful period piece about England after the war. But it isn't just social history, this is a lot of fun.

There is a satisfying and diverting story, enhanced by an ultra-anxious and indecisive Alastair Sim as a cartoonist whose work has been commandeered by the criminal element. A group of children take on a gang of crooks who use their favourite comic (Trump!) to pass on messages about gang activity.

And everything ends in a big punch up...TEB Clarke's script is droll rather than laugh out loud funny but there is the characteristic anarchy of the Ealing comedies

London is a bomb site devastated by the blitz and adopted as a playground for children. No one has anything of any value. There is no parental supervision. Boys and girls are segregated by their own choice, and play when and where they like. The past is a foreign country.

Entertaining Early Ealing Comedy Derring-Do Adventure Filmed on London's bombsites - Hue and Cry review by PV

I loved this film, an early Ealing comedy, written by TEB White who wrote The Lavender Hill Mob, and directed by Charles Crichton. Alistair Sim is here in a role 4 years before his classic Scrooge too. A treat. Paul Demel as a fur shop owner, sadly died 4 years later under 50, originally from Brno Slovakia. Harry Fowler stars - he lived into his 8-s after a 60 year acting career. I always wonder what happened to all the other kids in these films

The bombsites of London are real, this being just post war - and no pc mollycoddling of kids then either, the 'stay safe mantra' and paranoid parents keeping their kids cooped up in bedroom prisons for fear of imaginary monsters on the streets neither! A PROPER childhood these kids lives. Happy days. These were the days when many kids still left school aged 14 or 15 then got work easily and here we see them - the telegram boys, the ice cream carts, the apprentices and helpers in shops and markets.

It is a bit Children's Film Foundation at times BUT no matter, it is derring-do hokum, a real boy's own adventure, of the sort that never gets made these days with all movies and TV drama so issue-laden they can barely float. As for children's books - woke pc issue-led lectures the lot of em. THANK GOODNESS we have the archive.

I somehow missed this Ealing comedy and have never seen it before, I am so glad I have now.

4.5 stars rounded up.

Past its sell-by date - Hue and Cry review by Maureen

It's always worth taking a chance on old films, particularly from Ealing or Elstree and that often works, but not in this case. The start is extremely boring, so we went into fast forward mode. The middle wasn't any better, so we gave up. This poor old film should have been pensioned off.

George Roby.