London Belongs to Me (1948)

Wonderfully offbeat film!

Dreadfully Boring

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

The premise starts out strong. In the process of stealing a car, Breen's friend--who happens to be a girl--gets in. Breen speeds in an attempt to evade a police road block in search of the stolen car. The passenger side door opens, the girl falls out and dies as a result. Breen appears to get away with it. A police inspector falls for one of the girls in the boarding house Breen lives in; through some clever snooping and sleuthing, the police inspector nails Breen as the girl's murderer.So far so good.A trial scene in which Breen is convicted of willful murder. So far so good.The inhabitants of the boarding house decide to hold a march to the Home Office to reprieve Breen; misguided and perhaps character development for the lunacy, the idiosyncrasy of the boarding house tenants. Still OK--even if a bit much for a stretch.The Police Inspector decides to join the march! OK--that's where lunacy descended to idiocy and silliness and perverse. By then--the move was just too silly. The only appropriate ending was to see Breen's sentence commuted form hanging to life in prison without parole.The highlight of the movie--the performance of Alastair Sim as Mr. Henry Squales--a more vile and despicable creature one should ever find on film. (A character Dickens himself would have been proud to create.) "Oleaginous"--and not in the good sense--is the best way to describe Mr. Squales. And Alastair Sim plays the role to perfection. Think Mornau's Nosferatu--the long fingers, the long solitary string of hair descending from a bald pate to a long face attached to a long body. Squales pretending to be some kind of medium so he can get free board and room--oiling his way into the heart of the owner of the boarding house. That performance alone made the move worth seeing despite the descend to silliness.

It's all about a house and its tenants of very variable kinds, the last one moving in being a confused spiritualist somehow falling out of everything (Alastair Sim in an unforgettable character, later copied by Alec Guinness in "Ladykillers"), while the main character is Richard Attenborough as a young irresponsible luck-seeker without any luck, courting the daughter of the house while his former mistress won't leave him alone, which leads to the tragedy. The house becomes a web of intrigue and complications, the different destinies interlacing each other, leading to confusions and further tragedies - Alastair Sim is really the unluckiest of them all. A fabulous gallery of colorful actors, Stephen Murray and a young Hugh Griffith making a surprise entrance towards the end is just two of them, the idyll develops into a spectacular drama finally involving all London. It's a wonderful story with great warmth and empathy with its characters, almost like a documentary. Unfortunately I haven't read the novel, which should be even better. This is a must see for grass-root people, environmentalists, humanitarians and all defenders of the small people of narrow circumstances and humble conditions, making out the great majority of the ordinary harmless core of humanity.

I admit I was confused as I watched this film, was it a crime story, a black comedy, a political statement? But as the film went on, I realized it is so much more than that. It is about the people who live on Dulcimer Street on the brink of WWII. It is about a misguided, stupid, teenage boy, who loves his mother, a young girl about to become a woman, a man at the end of a dead end career who always thinks of others and has inner happiness. A rogue con man, a hungry middle age woman, an aging agitator, a policeman trapped by his superiors. All the different blends of true people of England, who come together against all odds to fight a battle already one. This is a film that captures the true spirit of being English. And that is what this film is about.

Having achieved success in 'Brighton Rock', Dickie Attenborough now carved out a career for himself as a bland English actor with the aid of John Mills. I'm not sure what exactly audiences saw in what he brought to the screen but he certainly didn't have cross over appeal.