Hue & Cry (1946), BBC2, 08.40hrs, 25 March

[Stanley Stewart]

So refreshing to see and record a rare outing for Hue & Cry, 1947, an
Ealing Studios production largely made on location, directed by Charles Crichton,
using the blitz devasted area of the south side of the Thames, I recognised the site, used for the climax with the arrival of hundreds of kids on the warpath as they exposed the crooks using their comics for passing secret messages, approx the site of Tate Modern today with Blackfriars Bridge in the background. Other locations, too, upstream in the Lambeth area. A bit eerie to cast my mind back to a post-WW2 era in a week of the tragic mayhem on Westminster Bridge!

A splendid cast included Alastair Sim and Harry Fowler and a pleasure to see Jack Warner as a thuggish spiv, several years before he became an icon as Dixon of Dock Green. Indeed, in 1968, I played the relief Sergeant who was taking over from Dixon for Christmas in the long running TV series, a lovely guy who was also a generous colleague. He often gave me a lift home after rehearsals and was fascinating about his years in Music Hall with his sisters, Elsie & Doris Waters. Also recognised and much respected by any passing police car en route. Instantly recognised and saluted.

Hue & Cry well worth watching if available on iPlayer.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

i-Playerable until 11:00 am this Saturday (1st April):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b037nryl/hue-and-cry

[Stanley Stewart]

i-Playerable until 11:00 am this Saturday (1st April):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...yl/hue-and-cry

Thanks, ferney

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thanks, ferney

My pleasure! (The beer, providing the link, and the film )

[jean]

Was there really a comic called the Trump?

[Globaltruth]

So refreshing to see and record a rare outing for Hue & Cry, 1947, an
Ealing Studios production largely made on location, directed by Charles Crichton,
using the blitz devasted area of the south side of the Thames, I recognised the site, used for the climax with the arrival of hundreds of kids on the warpath as they exposed the crooks using their comics for passing secret messages, approx the site of Tate Modern today with Blackfriars Bridge in the background. Other locations, too, upstream in the Lambeth area. A bit eerie to cast my mind back to a post-WW2 era in a week of the tragic mayhem on Westminster Bridge!

A splendid cast included Alastair Sim and Harry Fowler and a pleasure to see Jack Warner as a thuggish spiv, several years before he became an icon as Dixon of Dock Green. Indeed, in 1968, I played the relief Sergeant who was taking over from Dixon for Christmas in the long running TV series, a lovely guy who was also a generous colleague. He often gave me a lift home after rehearsals and was fascinating about his years in Music Hall with his sisters, Elsie & Doris Waters. Also recognised and much respected by any passing police car en route. Instantly recognised and saluted.

Hue & Cry well worth watching if available on iPlayer.

thanks for pointing this out - will definitely seek out, that's a marvellous cast and an iconic director.

Here's Elsie and Doris from Workers Playtime, the script stands up well 60 years later...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjbE4edM94E

[Nick Armstrong]

a rare outing for Hue & Cry, 1947

Yes, great little film. Not that rare an outing, happily - it does come around reasonably regularly: the copy on the hard disc recorder is from the BBC2 broadcast in September 2015.

I agree, the location settings just after the war are very resonant (even though it was made 15 years before I was born ) - probably because I worked around those areas for 30 years, and it's moving to see how they were just a few short decades earlier. (When I started around the City/Holborn/Blackfriars area in the mid 1980s, it was still relatively common to see the odd undemolished block - I can remember the poignant sight of bathroom or kitchen tiling of upper storey flats exposed and on the exterior where the rest of the building had disappeared.)

Indeed, in 1968, I played the relief Sergeant who was taking over from Dixon for Christmas in the long running TV series, a lovely guy who was also a generous colleague. He often gave me a lift home after rehearsals and was fascinating about his years in Music Hall with his sisters, Elsie & Doris Waters. Also recognised and much respected by any passing police car en route. Instantly recognised and saluted.

Fantastic anecdote, Stanley!!

[Bryn]

If only the cinephiles at the Beeb would track down and broadcast the uncut version of Will Hay's The Goose Steps Out. They have shown it in the distant past, so surely it must be possible.

Re. Hue and Cry, it is indeed available to 'watch again' via the iPlayer. Just got_[sic] it. What fun!

[Stanley Stewart]

Fortuitously, Bryn, I've got around to transferring an off-air video of Oh Mr Porter, 1937, a few weeks ago to an improved print on HD. Great to watch the trio of Will Hay, Graham Moffatt and Moore Marriott using the music hall traditions of their background with enormous gusto and skill. I'd be alert to any screening of The Goose Steps Out, (1942), as I haven't seen it for rather a long time. Will Hay on his tod on this occasion but a young Peter Ustinov comes to mind as one of the companion schoolboys on the chaotic trip to Germany. Another Ealing studios success.

[Serial_Apologist]

So refreshing to see and record a rare outing for Hue & Cry, 1947, an
Ealing Studios production largely made on location, directed by Charles Crichton,
using the blitz devasted area of the south side of the Thames, I recognised the site

I wonder if anyone remembers another film made around that time or a bit later, which also used that site. I must've been about six when my parents took me to see it at the cinema. The plot surrounded in a literal sense a family of publicans who were barricading themselves inside this pub, one of the last remaining buildings in the vast building site, probably being prepared for the Festival of Britain, and refusing to move. It was a comedy - I can remember laughling my little head off at the people inside the building shouting their heads off so as to be heard above the din of the road drills etc, and carrying on shouting when the din temporarily stopped. I've tried checking Google under various possible associations, to no avail.

Thanks for the heads up, Stanley, otherwise I would have missed this.

[Stanley Stewart]

Thanks, Globaltruth. Happy reminders of the ghastly Workers Playtime, usually heard around the lunch break with the raucous acclaim for Strictly Comes Dancing today but a pleasure to hear Gertie & Doris again and enjoy their rapport.
Yes, Cali, I share your pleasure in the London landscape, particularly on the South Bank. For 20 years, I worked at the COI, opposite North Lambeth, and the view from the 7th floor, of St Thomas' and over to Parliament, never failed to stir the creative juices if I was struggling with a documentary script or idea. Affectionate memories, too, of the mushrooming of the National Theatre, 1969, to the long industrial disputes as it eventually opened in 1976, after many years at the Old Vic. Even the dipped cranes on then thriving north side dockyards as Winston Churchill's funeral cortege passed-by on the river, Jan 1965, was a heart-stopping moment as, nationally, we sensed a change in our identity from that moment. After I retired in the mid-90s, my London visits always included a visit, via St Paul's, across the bridge to the Globe Theatre, or Tate Modern, before bussing along the now gentrified route to Waterloo and a concert at the RFH, or National Theatre. The blitzed locations of Hue & Cry stirred so many memories for me.

I also recall with a matching blush the first reading of Dixon of Dock Green at the BBC TV Centre. All of us, cast and technicians, seated at a long table. circa Nov, 1968. The script usually had a homily for Dixon's monologue and the theme, on this occasion, was the intro of the significance of the double yellow lines which had recently been legislated. Don't know why but I saw the funny side of such a blatant 'plant' and couldn't control a splutter which I quickly converted to a cough The reading stopped and all eyes turned in my direction as I only wanted the earth to open! Jack took it all in good part and even the director, David Askey, yes, son of Arthur, 'hello playmates', Askey, smiled gently when I looked at his face. I think we recorded on a Saturday night, 7-9pm, at the TV Centre and Jack asked me to supper in the Wood Lane cafeteria beforehand. Lots of 'names' came to our table and he always introduced me. We were both in police uniform and Ken Dodd arrived to ad lib, "I arrest you both for being in charge of a rissole"

It now all seems like yesterday. Happy days.

[greenilex]

What a treat... I remember the bomb sites a few years later ( only three when Hue and Cry came out) and the lure of all those weed covered mountains to climb.

Alastair Sim is alive and well and living on the forum, perhaps?

[Stanley Stewart]

What a treat... I remember the bomb sites a few years later ( only three when Hue and Cry came out) and the lure of all those weed covered mountains to climb.

Alastair Sim is alive and well and living on the forum, perhaps?

Alas, no. Alastair died around 1976. I did a play with him in 1972, as understudy to Michael Bryant. We did a pre- West End tour but it coincided with the first miners strike in '72, power cuts etc,..and we closed after a couple of weeks. Many anecdotes but think I need to do other things in the meantime...

[vinteuil]

I wonder if anyone remembers another film made around that time or a bit later, which also used that site. I must've been about six when my parents took me to see it at the cinema. The plot surrounded in a literal sense a family of publicans who were barricading themselves inside this pub, one of the last remaining buildings in the vast building site, probably being prepared for the Festival of Britain, and refusing to move. It was a comedy - I can remember laughling my little head off at the people inside the building shouting their heads off so as to be heard above the din of the road drills etc, and carrying on shouting when the din temporarily stopped. I've tried checking Google under various possible associations, to no avail.

... are you thinking of 'Passport to Pimlico'?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passport_to_Pimlico

[Serial_Apologist]

... are you thinking of 'Passport to Pimlico'?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passport_to_Pimlico

No, not that one, vints - good guess though: lots of other fillums made around that time using London bomb sites in atmospheric black and white - the Lavender Hill Mob, The League of Gentlemen, the Blue Lamp, Seven Days to Noon, It Always Rains on Sunday, etc. Fortunately I videotaped several of them when broadcasters were putting them on on wet afternoons, and still own a sensible-sized telly for playing them. I just hope I go before it does!