An interesting narrative voyage, which truly defies a neat categorisation. The film points us in several different directions, but is constructed chiefly around the lives of Mr and Mrs Josser and their daughter Doris who live in the ground floor of No 10 Dulcimer Street in London in 1938 -39. Retiring after many years of loyal service at the same company, Mr Josser is looking forward to settling down with his wife in a small cottage in the country. With war on the horizon, convention might dictate that this would become a primary theme, however, like life, this film isn't like that - war does come, but to these ordinary folk, it's only a small part of the scenery. Instead we are given a wonderful tapestry of richly played intertwined vignettes. Some humorous, some dramatic but all of which serve to draw us in. Mr Josser and his family are often incidental to the main point of focus, but isn't that often just how life is!

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.

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.

Confused postwar drama-come-comedy about an idiotic young man who gets involved in car theft and murder.Richard Attenborough plays a complete piker as the young man in a way that becomes really grating. Alastair Sim plays a dodgy geezer playing up to the landlady, in his usual creepy way – but funny and appealing.The first part of the film is serious and then a last unnecessary half-hour is filled with a comic petition to reprieve the young man from the gallows (?).The film seems to be quite well made but the plot seems to look like it was made up of two different stories.