This is one of those "slice of cockney life" films so beloved of post war British filmmakers.It belongs in a time capsule along with "Picturegoer","Illustrated","Lilliput" and "Health and efficiency". It's so wonderfully silly and full of British thesps struggling bravely with their dipthongs and glottal stops. I don't think anybody actually says"Blimey guv'nor,yore a toff and no mistyke" but that was probably due to an oversight.However,there is some slight connection with real life in the 1940s that overrides these criticisms and makes it quite compelling in its absurd way.60 years ago London comprised of dozens of autonomous communities like the one shown in this film.They were separated by clearly defined social and physical boundaries.If a boy from Bethnal Green was walking out with a girl from Poplar,say,she would have been viewed with some suspicion by his friends and family. Together with Stepney,Bethnal Green,Poplar and Bow have merged into The Borough of Tower Hamlets.Half a century of Town Planning and Social Engineering has seen the community become ghettoised and divided along racial and religious lines that not even the most pessimistic East Ender could have foreseen.So in these black and white images we have a portrait of a society that - all unknowing - was on its way to extinction. The major problem I have with "It always rains on Sunday" is the casting of Miss G.Withers and Mr J.Macallum in the lead roles.I'm not sure what they're speaking but it certainly isn't cockney.Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell comes to mind. Jack Warner,Sidney Tafler and the great Meier Tzelnicker walk away with the film,masters all of what is now called "Estuary English". When you look at this and "The Blue Lamp" you are seeing the first stirrings of British Noir Cinema if I may use so grand a term.As such,both films have been hugely influential on subsequent generations of artists and countless TV soaps. Every film of course is a Time Machine,and here,preserved,is a Britain on the verge of the Welfare State,populated by people many of whom were still suffering from the deprivations of the Second World War,a male - dominated society where a considerable amount of the community had outside lavatories and no bathrooms,everybody smoked and the local copper could give you a clip round the ear without being thought a fascist brute because everybody knew what real fascists were. If you remember this era with some affection - however grudging - the chances are you already know "It always rains on Sunday". If it seems like a recounting of some Dark Age then you might find as L.P. Hartley said,that the past is a foreign country,and whilst it might be worth your while to take your passport and visit,you wouldn't want to live there.
Review of It Always Rains on Sunday
