Flame In The Streets (1961)

A union leader and factory foreman (John Mills) at a furniture company fights for the right of a black employee (Earl Cameron) to get promoted. But when his daughter (Sylvia Syms, THE QUEEN) announces her intention to marry a West Indian (Johnny Sekka), he must confront not only his wife's (Brenda De Banzie, THE PINK PANTHER) blatant racism but his own discomfort at the idea. Six years before GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER? opened in America with its genteel upper class racism, this gritty in your face look at racism and interracial marriage didn't pull any punches. Directed by Roy Ward Baker (A NIGHT TO REMEMBER), this is the anti-GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER? movie and far more realistic. Instead of the wealthy professional newspaper publisher and his art gallery owner wife in their posh San Francisco digs removed from it all, these characters live in a downscale working class neighborhood where racism and violence aren't strangers and the film's title is quite literal. Mills even has a terrific monologue that equals Tracy's famous GWCTD? speech and the ending isn't wrapped up in a ribbon either. All the characters face an uphill battle in a cloudy future. Handsomely shot in CinemaScope by Christopher Challis (TWO FOR THE ROAD). With Ann Lynn, Barbara Windsor and Wilfrid Brambell.