Ealing Studios are best remembered for their beloved post-war comedies. If you were to judge the national mood in the years following Hitler’s defeat simply from watching their classic comedies such as The Ladykillers, Passport to Pimlico, and The Lavender Hill Mob, you’d think that Britain, and specifically London, was a beaten down but cheery place full of chirpy and harmless cockney criminals and resilient old ladies, and everyone was infused with a spirit of cheeky optimism.
But besides its trademark wry (although often subtlety dark) comedies, the studio was also responsible for some much grittier output. It produced several propaganda pieces during the war, including Alberto Cavalcanti’s Went the Day Well, which was released in 1942 and posited what would happen if the Germans successfully invaded Britain (hint: bad things) and San Demetrio London, which told the true story of the eponymous tanker and raised awareness of the heroism of the British Merchant Navy.
It Always Rains on Sunday isn’t a propaganda piece, it was released in 1947 when the war was over and the government no longer needed to fund films to convince the British people and the rest of the world that they were doing fine and their upper lips were still suitably stiff. It also isn’t a comedy, which is immediately obvious from the cinematography by the legendary Douglas Slocombe. Whilst Ealing comedies were usually photographed through a rose-tinted lens that portrayed bomb-sites and rubble in a romantic picture-postcard way, It Always Rains on Sunday’s monochrome visuals don’t shy away from showing Blitz-scarred London in all its drab, ugly reality.
It was directed by Robert Hamer two years before he made arguably the greatest of the Ealing comedies, Kind Hearts and Coronets, and although it shares that film’s nihilistic darkness it has none of its caricatured performances or good natured absurdity. The film naturally takes place on a rainy Sunday in Bethnal Green and its complex narrative features a huge cast of East End characters ranging from petty crooks trying to flog stolen roller skates to coppers to normal struggling working-class folk. These characters all drift in and out of the story but it centres around bored housewife Rose (Googie Winters), whose married to boring but dependable George (Edward Chapman), and her old flame Tommy (Withers real life husband John McCallum) who bursts back into her life after breaking out of Dartmoor Prison.
It’s a steadily paced slice-of-life that builds towards an action packed, wonderfully staged and clever climax as the various stories dovetail, and it’s easy to see it as a precursor to the kitchen sink’ realism that was to pervade British cinema a decade or so later with films like Billy Liar and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. And with its cast of squabbling cockneys living out their relentlessly grim lives it can also be seen as a clear inspiration for Eastenders, but don’t hold that against it.
It’s so gloomy that I did sometimes find myself wishing that Alec Guinness or Peter Sellers would appear and bring a bit of levity to proceedings, but this is a serious drama about a serious time and it’s so vividly atmospheric that it transports you back to a real Age of Austerity. The BFI have recently re-released the film in cinemas and that combined with this fantastic Blu-Ray package will hopefully bring this overlooked film back into the national consciousness.
Overall Verdict: If you’re expecting a cosy Ealing comedy you’re in for a shock as this is a grim and defiantly realistic portrayal of Londoners struggling through the post-war depression. But it’s also an intricately structured and occasionally deeply emotional drama as well as a hugely influential slice of social-realism that changed the face of British cinema.
Special Features:
Coming in From The Rain: Revisiting It Always Rains on Sunday
Locations featurette
Stills Gallery
Trailer
Reviewer: Adam Pidgeon