New York’s leading movie house for independent premieres and repertory programming
A nonprofit cinema since 1970
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New York’s leading movie house for independent premieres and repertory programming
A nonprofit cinema since 1970
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| PREVIOUSLY AT FILM FORUM |
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| "A MASTERPIECE of dead ends and might-have-beens, highly inventive in its use of flashbacks and multiple overlapping narratives, and brilliantly acted by Withers and McCallum… a sprawling, Altmanesque tapestry of East End life… Hamer might have been one of the major figures in modern British cinema. As things stand, It Always Rains on Sunday is a major work, badly in need of rediscovery." – Scott Foundas, The Village Voice. Click here to read review "ONE OF HAMER’S MASTERPIECES… It starts out with a typical film noir situation: a woman helps an escaped convict who was once her lover. But Hamer demolishes this plot, transforming it into A BRILLIANTLY WRITTEN CHORAL WORK in which the destinies of a multitude of characters crisscross." – Bertrand Tavernier, Film Comment. Click here to read feature "A fascinating noirish look at life in London’s East End… the scenes between Withers and McCallum are stunningly erotic, and the movie ends with a spectacular chase through the London streets and rail yards. It was shot by Douglas Slocombe, whose use of lighting deep within the frame may prefigure Robert Krasker’s work in The Third Man." – David Denby, The New Yorker. Click here to read review "Delivers an existential wallop for the ages!"– S. James Snyder, The New York Sun. Click here to read review "You could call the secret loves in It Always Rains On Sunday noirish, yet the passion and torments of its women are grounded in an East End locale that feels kitchen-sink-real… Frank and bracing in ways that we’re not used to seeing in a movie from this period, marking a very worthy rerelease by Rialto." – Nicolas Rapold, The L magazine. Click to read review "ONE OF THE UNDERRATED GEMS OF POST-WWII BRITISH FILM… Hamer's direction and Douglas Slocombe’s glistening camerawork are every bit as skilled as those you’d find in the works of Robert Siodmak, Anthony Mann or any of the great noir directors in Hollywood." – George Robinson, The Jewish Week. Click here to read review Click here to download pressbook
Available at Amazon: | ||
(1947) Another rainy Sunday in Bethnal Green, in London’s
East End — and another dull one for Googie Withers: rapping
on the bedroom wall to summon good stepdaughter to start
the tea; nagging her decent but dull hubby to fix a broken
window; battling with late-night-partying-with-married-man
stepdaughter; and then running through the rain to the
backyard bomb shelter/tool shed to find... ex-lover John
McCallum, fresh from his Dartmoor prison breakout.
Hitchcockian suspense, with atmosphere redolent of French
poetic realism — but mainly a Brueghelian slice of post-war
British life as, amid a raucous street market, a feckless trio
of thieves try to unload a truckload of hot roller skates; a Jewish music store owner/sax player
chases one “shiksa” too many; a fight fixer drops a thick roll in the youth center collection box;
while comfortably pipe-smoking inspector Jack Warner plays Javert throughout a long day— climaxing with an excitingly photographed chase through railroad yards and puffing steam
engines, two suicide attempts, and a murder. Unusual fare for Ealing Studios, home to the
archetypally cozy British comedy (The Lavender Hill Mob, Passport to Pimlico, etc. etc.), but in
fact its first popular success; and marking a kind of transition from the upper clahss pre-war
cinema to the coming Angry Young Man/“kitchen sink” school. Ealing auteur maudit Robert
Hamer would next make the icily brilliant comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets; cameraman
Douglas Slocombe would later shoot all three Indiana Jones films; composer Georges Auric
would soon create the scores for Roman Holiday and Rififi; and star Googie Withers, doyenne
of “Brit Noir” (Dead of Night, Dassin’s Night and the City), would wed co-star McCallum
the following year — at press time, they’re still together. “Like
a British counterpart to Carné’s Port of Shadows, another tale
of doomed lovers and petty criminals adrift on rainswept
streets. 
But the director is also alert to the gossiping
and backbiting of the Bethnal Green neighborhood.”– The Independent. “Almost the definitive post-war
British film... Excellently photographed,
particularly in its tense and underplayed side
street and railroad yard chase climax. . . One of
the best films from the tragically short career of
Robert Hamer.” – William K. Everson.
[FIVE STARS] ![Robert Hamer's KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS 2 DVD SPECIAL EDITION Sale Price: $27.09 tax included [$25.00 plus tax]](rains/kinddvd.jpg)