Hue and Cry (1947)
Considered as the first of the Ealing Comedies, Hue and Cry (1947) is a socio-realist thriller for children set amongst the rubble of post-war London. Scene after scene show swathes of a crumbling city. The ruins serve as a playground for the children and in an odd way a nurturing ground.
Hue and Cry tells the story of a gang of boys, Joe chief among them, who discover that a criminal gang are communicating to each other covertly through a comic book called Trump. He reaches out to the comic book's author, played by Alistair Sim (best known for his portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge) for clues and begins to piece together the activities of the criminal gang. Little does he realise how close to the central figure of the criminal gang he is. Joe and his friends pursue a sinister lady who works for the publisher of the comic books as they suspect that she is is in cahoots with the leader of the criminal gang, played by Jack Warner masquerading as a fruit and veg seller in Covent Garden.
I was reminded somewhat of Luis Buñuel's Los Olvidados (1950), which shares the same social realist context featuring child protagonists growing up amidst poverty, yet in Hue and Cry we witness children living in poverty who do not turn to crime and delinquency but attempt to uncover the immoral actions of the adults.
For a film with a dark side, this is a light hearted romp through post-war London. Here the children are bold and triumphant and the adults are devious or disconnected and distant.
This film is now considered culturally significant because it is one of the last to truly show the damage inflicted on London during the Blitz. In the years that followed, rebuilding projects would considerably change whole sections of the city, and in many ways this film preserves the memory of an older and now lost London.
