Robert Hamer was an up and coming Ealing director who had already been paired with Googie Withers in one of the best stories from "Dead of Night", "The Haunted Mirror". Ealing was a studio specializing in programmers during the thirties but after "Dead of Night" started to make a name as a diverse studio with their own particular brand of comedy ("Passport to Pimlico", "The Lavender Hill Mob") and bleak drama ("It Always Rains on Sunday" and later "Mandy") and glorious Googie Withers was occasionally on hand to add her professionalism and terrific acting skills. I agree with the reviewer who said that Withers was not restricted to any genre - she was as good in period costume as she was playing an up to date woman ("The Haunted Mirror" ) or a drab slattern ("It Always Rains on Sunday").
Toward the end of the war film makers hit pay dirt with a series of lurid Victorian melodramas, one critic called Gainsborough Gothic - "The Wicked Lady", "Fanny By Gaslight" etc and one of Ealings contributions was the ambiguously named "Pink String and Sealing Wax". The title seemed to come from the unusual way the chemist did up his little parcels but even the symbolic significance escaped me unless it was the neat and tidy way Sutton wanted his life to run. It could have stood on it's own as a lurid murder story (along the lines of "Ivy") and Googie Withers was a long time being introduced as the mercenary Pearl but the subplot involving the harsh family life of the chemist's children didn't take too much away from the more salacious doings down at "The Dolphin".
Mervyn Johns, a really unsung actor, plays dour Edward Sutton who runs the chemist shop and when seen walking jauntily along the street, a bystander remarks "Oh, the girl must be going to hang" - Sutton being the foreman of the jury!! He rules his household with a rod of iron - scoffing at his son David's (youthful Gordon Jackson, his "Hudson" days long in the future) efforts at poetry writing, forcing his older daughter, Victoria, into a teaching career when her heart is set on opera and taking younger daughter Peggy's (Sally Ann Howes) pet guinea pigs away to experiment on!! Nice bloke!!!
In despair David walks down to "The Dolphin" where he becomes entangled with Pearl, the predatory wife of the local publican. He is soon under Pearl's spell and when he takes her to the chemist's to dress her cut hand she spins him her side of the story about how her brutal husband beats her and leads her a miserable existence, conveniently leaving out her promiscuous and provocative ways. She is keen on low life Dan Powell who says he would be keen on her - if she were a widow but Pearl doesn't need much encouragement and when innocent David, in an effort to engage her in conversation, commences a run down on how various poisons work, Pearl instantly steals some in her handkerchief the minute his back is turned. With the knowledge she has garnered it looks like being the perfect murder until Dan's discarded mistress Louise puts two and two together and goes to the police!!
I thought it ended pretty dramatically - I definitely didn't want to see a trial where Googie was given her just deserts, but also the "humanizing" of Edward Sutton when he realises his son could be implicated in the sordid affair was a little too pat - perhaps the scene where his wife stood up to him in his treatment of Victoria helped as well!!
Highly Recommended.
Toward the end of the war film makers hit pay dirt with a series of lurid Victorian melodramas, one critic called Gainsborough Gothic - "The Wicked Lady", "Fanny By Gaslight" etc and one of Ealings contributions was the ambiguously named "Pink String and Sealing Wax". The title seemed to come from the unusual way the chemist did up his little parcels but even the symbolic significance escaped me unless it was the neat and tidy way Sutton wanted his life to run. It could have stood on it's own as a lurid murder story (along the lines of "Ivy") and Googie Withers was a long time being introduced as the mercenary Pearl but the subplot involving the harsh family life of the chemist's children didn't take too much away from the more salacious doings down at "The Dolphin".
Mervyn Johns, a really unsung actor, plays dour Edward Sutton who runs the chemist shop and when seen walking jauntily along the street, a bystander remarks "Oh, the girl must be going to hang" - Sutton being the foreman of the jury!! He rules his household with a rod of iron - scoffing at his son David's (youthful Gordon Jackson, his "Hudson" days long in the future) efforts at poetry writing, forcing his older daughter, Victoria, into a teaching career when her heart is set on opera and taking younger daughter Peggy's (Sally Ann Howes) pet guinea pigs away to experiment on!! Nice bloke!!!
In despair David walks down to "The Dolphin" where he becomes entangled with Pearl, the predatory wife of the local publican. He is soon under Pearl's spell and when he takes her to the chemist's to dress her cut hand she spins him her side of the story about how her brutal husband beats her and leads her a miserable existence, conveniently leaving out her promiscuous and provocative ways. She is keen on low life Dan Powell who says he would be keen on her - if she were a widow but Pearl doesn't need much encouragement and when innocent David, in an effort to engage her in conversation, commences a run down on how various poisons work, Pearl instantly steals some in her handkerchief the minute his back is turned. With the knowledge she has garnered it looks like being the perfect murder until Dan's discarded mistress Louise puts two and two together and goes to the police!!
I thought it ended pretty dramatically - I definitely didn't want to see a trial where Googie was given her just deserts, but also the "humanizing" of Edward Sutton when he realises his son could be implicated in the sordid affair was a little too pat - perhaps the scene where his wife stood up to him in his treatment of Victoria helped as well!!
Highly Recommended.