Watch Hue and Cry For Free

hyped garbage

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"Hue and Cry", one of the earliest and freshest of the Ealing comedies, now has that look of what my children and grandchildren call "the olden days" rather than yesteryear. What more fascinating document to capture the look of London in the immediate post war period for historians! Because this is escapist fare no mention is made of the blitz. Bombsites are presented as one vast amusement park where the youngsters of the film cavort and have fun. In Britain during the 'forties filmmakers were going great guns on escaping the studios for interesting locations, albeit, in this case, acres of debris. For a climax the chase was the big thing and what better than bringing the goodies and the baddies together for one massive punch up in a bomb damaged urban landscape, location work that more than makes up for some pretty phony looking studio backdrops in places. "Hue and "Cry" is a hugely enjoyable romp in which a gang of youngsters led by the engagingly cockney Harry Fowler take on and eventually foil a gang of crooks led by laughing mastermind Jack Warner after discovering that their favourite 'penny dreadful' is being used as the means to convey instructions for criminal activities. Because almost everyone enjoyed a caricature in those days, there is the larger than life Alistair Sim to provide that added dimension of playful eccentricity in the person of the innocent writer who is completely unaware of the use to which his stories are being put. It all leads via a scene in the London sewers, predating "The Third Man", to the glorious climax where all the boys of the capital and one girl descend, quite literally in one case, on the baddies. And what better to round it all off than a shot of angelic choirboys, bandaged, black eyed and gap toothed,singing "Oh! for the Wings of a Dove!"

The word 'hue' is Middle English (derived from Old French) and means 'to shout or make an outcry'. 'Hue and cry' derives from the Anglo-Norman French dialect of a thousand years ago, 'hu e cri', and describes the outcry made to call for the pursuit of a felon, or the pursuit itself of such a criminal. By extension, it came later to be applied to the noise, blown horn, and shouting made when English hunters and their hounds spotted a fox and set off in pursuit of it. At the time this film was made, 'hue and cry' was a phrase known to everyone in England and was frequently used in conversation. It only died out in the 1980s. Before that, if there were a big fuss in the press over some political issue, people would say: 'What a hue and cry there has been in the papers today about the Prime Minister's policy,' or if justice were not seen to be done, they would say: 'They have set up a terrible hue and cry over that issue recently in legal circles'. In other words, by the 1960s 'make a hue and cry' had come to mean 'make a loud fuss'. It was a phrase that was used daily all over the country for decades, but is now as forgotten as the dodo, since most of the people who used it as a common expression are dead, and they did not perpetuate this usage amongst their children, who viewed it as old-fashioned, and dropped it. This film was shot on location in 1946 in London, and gives mind-boggling views of the extent of the ruins left after the wartime bombing. Anyone familiar with London simply gasps with disbelief at shot after shot of rubble and collapsed buildings, in which this gang of street kinds regularly play. The ruins are as extreme as those of bombed-out Germany which were shown in the newsreels and recur in documentaries about the War today. Seeing how extensive the devastation of London really was brings the issue of the British Bomber Command into better focus, and reminds us that the decision to bomb the German cities as flat as pancakes had something to do with rage. War is war, you know, a point often forgotten in our spoilt age of today. People today seem to think that war can be fought remotely with drones, or that war is something which takes place in distant deserts and mountains. But take the contemporary American outrage at 9/11 and multiply it by a thousand, and you will get some idea of how the British felt about the Germans, and many still do ('bloody Krauts, now running the European Union as a Fourth Reich!' as I have heard it said). So this film has an importance far beyond its story line, which is a charming one about children bringing criminals to justice and setting up a hue and cry about them when the police can and will do nothing. The one portion of the story which is really rather silly is the character of the writer of children's' comics played in an over-the-top doddering fashion by Alastair Sim. That was terribly overdone, and the excess of whimsy makes one queasy. The story involves children's comics being doctored to carry instructions to real criminal gangs for their next robberies, hence the children figuring it out and taking action. The British have always been inclined to believe that secret coded messages were carried in their newspapers. Harry Jonas the artist and Walter Sickert's illegitimate son whose name I have now forgotten used to tell me that the secret to Jack the Ripper's identity had been revealed in the crossword puzzles carried by the Daily Mail, which was also used to convey coded instructions to British secret agents. They believed all of this absolutely, and I have met others who did. The Americans thus do not have a monopoly on paranoia and conspiracy theories, as these were widespread in Britain long before they became fashionable in the USA. Here we have an entire film released in 1947 based upon one, and a semi-comedy at that. This film, an Ealing production, is often called the first Ealing comedy. I would not call it a comedy per se, but it has a definite comic side to it. Nor would I call it a fantasy film, as the setting and the kids are too 'real' for that. Many of the kids do brilliantly, especially the one tough street girl amongst the gang of boys, played by the truly inspired actress Joan Dowling, in her very first screen role at the age of 17 (she died at the age of 26). These kids represent the authentic Cockney tradition of the East End of London with their self-reliance, cheekiness, irreverence, and daring, and much of the action takes place at Chadwell near Tilbury in the East End. (An ancestor of mine lived at the manor house of Chadwell, called 'The Long House', in the seventeenth century when it was all farms, strangely enough. But it subsequently became a Cockney slum area when London expanded in the 19th century.) The film is superbly directed (except for the Alastair Sim sections) by Charles Crichton, whose last film which he directed at the age of 78, was the hilarious hit, A FISH CALLED WANDA (1988). He also directed part of the great classic film TRAIN OF EVENTS (1949, see my review, and my comments there about the spectacularly brilliant actress Joan Dowling, mentioned above), and is famous for THE LAVENDER HILL MOB (1951). Another extraordinary aspect of this film is the section where the kids wander through the London sewer system, which I have never encountered in any other British film. Everything about this film makes it worth watching, and certainly enjoyable for anyone who does not require continuous 'smash bang' on a drip.

This comedy centres on the young Harry Fowler and chums as an astute lad in postwar London. Among the ruins of such, the film vividly captures that era and of course engaging British stereotypical 'urchins' with their scruffbag looks and grey shorts!Jack Warner excellently departs from his famous 'PC Dixon' role (although that was two years later) as a neat villain, coaxing Joe Kirby (Fowler) all along, when the unsuspecting oik is filling him in on what he's found - that of a criminal plot that actually involves Warner! The plot and help for the criminals has been found with clues printed in a comic called 'The Trump' that Joe and his chums studiously read and await with anticipation every week (Remember those days before computers?).On unmasking this plot, when Joe unknowingly, trusts Warner who then kidnaps him, the chums manage to 'shanghai' a radio station microphone and set out the call: "Calling all boys - go to (Can't remember location!) for an adventure!" the next scene shows boys dropping everything - literally, the boy drops his mum's shopping, another's about to kiss a girl and runs off, etc! Excellent scene! It turns out one of the comic's staff was obviously in on it, and there's a nice scene where the boys tie her up, and set out to torture her for the information - this isn't as bad as it sounds, they can't really bring themselves to be vicious, so she's seen being tickled by a feather on her feet! Not impressed or bothered at all, one of the boys brings out his mouse - and 'being a woman',she squeals in more ways than one! Although that sounds like an easy scene it was quite amusing! The 'boys' who do have a girl among them as I recall, are seen jumping the crooks, with fisticuffs in British style, with 'fists of tapioca' as reviewer/journalist Clive James once described hits to the face in Saturday morning cinema style! On that point, although the film is 61 years old, I saw this in the late 1960's at Saturday morning pictures and it's stuck in my mind ever since! Nice thought to carry to your deathbed of your own kindred youth!

Generally reckoned to be the first 'Ealing' comedy,a fondly-regarded series of gentle,humorous satires of British life in the late 1940's-early 1950's,this is actually more of a rowdy,fast-paced crime caper than what gradually developed to the above familiar style of this famous film studio.However,it is none the worse for that,with an amusing script and speedy direction by Ealing veterans TEB Clarke and Charles Crichton,and efficient performances by a mostly teenage cast.Looking from a 21st Century viewpoint,it is an astonishing fact how UK teens dressed (in dull tweed suits) and behaved (no guns,knives or bad language) in the pre-rock n' roll era;in this more cynical day and age,it would be the adults stopping the kids committing crime rather than vice versa.This actually helps the film in giving it a quaint period charm which will never be recaptured,as is the well-photographed scenes of war-torn London.Alastair Sim is billed first but the real leading man is inimitable cockney actor Harry Fowler,while the usually genial Jack Warner (a little uncomfortably) is the main adult protagonist,a ruthless villain;Sim is enjoyably buffoonish as a cartoonist,but his is basically a minor character and little seen despite his top billing. The highlight is the final battle between the criminal gang and London street urchins who seem to swarm over their prey like soldier ants.The sequence is funny,exhilarating,thrilling and even spectacular.HUE AND CRY isn't the best Ealing comedy,and not necessarily the most typical,but despite dated elements is still largely very enjoyable and pleasantly nostalgic for older film-goers. RATING:7 and a half out of 10.