It Always Rains On Sunday (1947)

Set in post WWII London's East End, an escaped convict (John McCallum) seeks out an old flame (Googie Withers), who is now married and has a family, for a place to hide from the police. Based on the novel by Arthur La Bern and directed by Robert Hamer (KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS). This tough and gritty melodrama was a bit ahead of its time as it has the atmosphere of those British "kitchen sink" dramas that blossomed in the late 1950s and early 1960s. These aren't the posh Brits of BBC period dramas or Masterpiece Theater but the working class blokes and petty criminals. Almost every character in the film seems to be trapped in a cul-de-sac from which there is no escape. The film focuses mostly on the domestic entrapment of Googie Withers' wife but the movie also has a myriad of subplots involving bad marriages, cheating husbands, petty crooks, lechers and the police detective (Jack Warner) who weaves in and out of the story. While the film casts a bleak eye to its multiple characters, Douglas Slocombe's (THE LION IN WINTER) incisive B&W cinematography captures all the nuance and shading. With Edward Chapman, Susan Shaw, Patricia Plunkett, Sydney Tafler and Hermione Baddeley.