FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Hell is a City is one of a number of post-war crime thrillers that brought the grittiness of American film noir to British settings. Your choices then for what we’ll screen on Tuesday 15 April are out of three more classic Brit Noirs.  Up for the vote are…

Night and the City (Jules Dassin, UK, 1950)

Richard Widmark plays Harry Fabian, a small-time hustler in London’s underworld, desperate to make it big. His scheming leads to betrayal and deadly consequences. Directed by Jules Dassin (Rififi, The Naked City), the film captures post-war despair with striking cinematography of many real-life locations and Widmark’s intense, doomed performance.

Pool of London (Basil Dearden, UK, 1951)

Everything changes for two sailors on shore leave when they inadvertently become caught up in a crime as murky as the great Thames itself. For one of them, Johnny (Earl Cameron), life is further complicated when he falls in love with Pat, a local ticket seller, forming one of the first interracial relationships in British film. Basil Dearden’s use of actual locations bring post-war London to life in a film that thrillingly blends heist drama with social commentary.

The Small Back Room (Powell & Pressburger, UK, 1949)

Troubled bomb disposal expert, Sammy Rice (David Farrar) battles alcoholism and self-doubt while disarming  a deadly new German bomb. He falls in love with Susan (Kathleen Byron), a colleague, and the two begin a secret affair. However, embittered by life, he feels inferior: inferior as a lover, inferior as a man unable to wear uniform, inferior in his work… Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s unique  film blends suspense, romance, and post-war trauma, culminating in a tense, nerve-wracking climax.