Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

roy-78517 I watched this film when it was first released at my local cinema in Hackney. It was the first film that I had ever seen which showed an East End which I could recognise as the one I knew. All the characters were recognisable and true to life. One caveat thought, we see the husband having a hipbath in his kitchen (true to life), but I did wonder where all the hot water came from.certainly not from the tap!, Although I grew up in Hackney, within walking distance, all my immediate family came from there and, as I discovered later,many generations earlier too. Very much a Jewish East End too. This sounds like a cliche, but most of my best school friends were Jewish boys (NEVER jewboys which was pejorative ). It was a delight to see it again, I must search around to find a good copy on DVD. I lovely film which took me back seventy years or more to my boyhood.

Alex da Silva John McCallum (Tommy) escapes from Dartmoor prison and seeks out his ex-girlfriend Googie Withers (Rose) for food and clothing to help him on his way. Googie is now married to Edward Chapman (George) and lives with his 2 daughters and a son of their own. I think? The son seems a bit old but I think that's the relationship as he refers to Googie as 'mum'. We get involved in their claustrophobic life in their community where everyone seems to know each other. It's the East End of London and everyone is 'salt of the earth'. You get spivs, gangsters, family life and detective Jack Warner (Fothergill) on the trail of McCallum. Googie and McCallum do get together in real life but things are different in this film.The main plot follows the escaped convict storyline but this film is also about family life with characters having their own agendas. Which room is the best room in the house to hide an escaped criminal? You won't believe where Googie directs her ex not only to hideout but also to have a kip! We see McCallum's true feelings towards Googie unravel in the later stages of the film and there is quite an intense final scene as he makes a break for it. I watched the film on a Sunday. And it was raining.

writers_reign This is a poor man's London Belongs To Me and although there's nothing much wrong with it the question remains why bother. Norman Collins wrote a superb valentine to London in London Belongs To Me and it was adapted for the screen around the same time as this effort which is unfortunate as this one will always come off worst in direct comparison whereas a larger gap might have been beneficial. Collins' Dulcimer Street was located in South London and the Sandigate's home is in Bethnal Green whilst Ealing, where it was made, is in West London; so much for that. One thing is clear from the opening scene; the only escapism here is in the shape of Tommy Swann who kick-starts the action by escaping from Dartmoor and lights out for Bethnal Green and sanctuary with the faithful (he hopes) Rose (Googie Withers) who has married, since he went down, a colourless husband who treats her well. None of the women in Bethnal Green are having much fun; the elder of Rose's step-daughters, Susan Shaw, a good-time girl manque' is involved with small-time shop-keeper cum musician Sydney Tafler, who is married and only interested in a bit on the side, whilst younger daughter - Patricia Plunkett in her first film - catches the eye of Tafler's spiv brother, John Slater, who offers her a job 'up West' which will probably evaporate once she comes across. The usual suspects are wheeled out, wooden Jimmy Hanley, Alfie Bass, Vida Hope, Hermione Baddely, Frederick Piper and a pre-Dixon Jack Warner as the cop charged with tracking Swann (John McCallum) down. In 1947 it was probably good solid entertainment; shame London Belongs To Me eclipsed it.

ianlouisiana This is one of those "slice of cockney life" films so beloved of post war British filmmakers.It belongs in a time capsule along with "Picturegoer","Illustrated","Lilliput" and "Health and efficiency". It's so wonderfully silly and full of British thesps struggling bravely with their dipthongs and glottal stops. I don't think anybody actually says"Blimey guv'nor,yore a toff and no mistyke" but that was probably due to an oversight.However,there is some slight connection with real life in the 1940s that overrides these criticisms and makes it quite compelling in its absurd way.60 years ago London comprised of dozens of autonomous communities like the one shown in this film.They were separated by clearly defined social and physical boundaries.If a boy from Bethnal Green was walking out with a girl from Poplar,say,she would have been viewed with some suspicion by his friends and family. Together with Stepney,Bethnal Green,Poplar and Bow have merged into The Borough of Tower Hamlets.Half a century of Town Planning and Social Engineering has seen the community become ghettoised and divided along racial and religious lines that not even the most pessimistic East Ender could have foreseen.So in these black and white images we have a portrait of a society that - all unknowing - was on its way to extinction. The major problem I have with "It always rains on Sunday" is the casting of Miss G.Withers and Mr J.Macallum in the lead roles.I'm not sure what they're speaking but it certainly isn't cockney.Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell comes to mind. Jack Warner,Sidney Tafler and the great Meier Tzelnicker walk away with the film,masters all of what is now called "Estuary English". When you look at this and "The Blue Lamp" you are seeing the first stirrings of British Noir Cinema if I may use so grand a term.As such,both films have been hugely influential on subsequent generations of artists and countless TV soaps. Every film of course is a Time Machine,and here,preserved,is a Britain on the verge of the Welfare State,populated by people many of whom were still suffering from the deprivations of the Second World War,a male - dominated society where a considerable amount of the community had outside lavatories and no bathrooms,everybody smoked and the local copper could give you a clip round the ear without being thought a fascist brute because everybody knew what real fascists were. If you remember this era with some affection - however grudging - the chances are you already know "It always rains on Sunday". If it seems like a recounting of some Dark Age then you might find as L.P. Hartley said,that the past is a foreign country,and whilst it might be worth your while to take your passport and visit,you wouldn't want to live there.