It Always Rains on Sunday

This saga of interconnecting lives is one of Ealing's more successful non-comedies. The drab city locale of Arthur La Bern's source novel is brilliantly re-created in the studio and the atmosphere is superbly captured by cameraman Douglas Slocombe. In a cast of well-known character actors, top-billed Googie Withers is particularly outstanding as the ex-lover of convict John McCallum (they married a year later in real life), while Sydney Tafler and John Slater are the embodiment of East Enders (they would spend much of their careers playing similar roles in often inferior films). The film marked a breakthrough for its portrayal of the English working class on screen, and much of the credit should go to director/co-writer Robert Hamer, who's perhaps better known for directing Ealing's one undisputed masterpiece, Kind Hearts and Coronets.