A Place to Go.

A Bright New Future?

As John Hill commented in his book British Cinema 1956-1963 one of the most striking characteristics of our home-grown cinema towards the end of the 1950’s was its increasing concern to deal with contemporary social issues and a series of films that became known as the Social Problem Film. Director Basil Dearden and producer Michael Relph were responsible for some of the best of this genre including Sapphire (1959) that dealt with race problems and the controversial Victim (1961) the first mainstream film to deal directly with homosexuality. A Place to Go (1963) is the last of these types of films by the successful partnership and deals with the subject of youth and it’s involvement with criminality.

As the Daily Cinema remarked at the time of the films release “The film is very much concerned with the wind of change which is blowing through the East End of London, (Its set and filmed in Bethnal Green) a wind which is sweeping away the close packed street’s of drab little houses (and as it turned out the close knit working class community as well) and bringing new, shining modern flats in their place. The trouble is that this wind blows too fast for the old but not fast enough for the young. As we now know the shining modern flats would eventually develop their own problems.

A night out at the Stow for Cat and Ricky. 

The plot of this youth orientated story involves an East End family living in what the authorities called slums, but what they call home. Dad leaves his job in the Docks after a row with his union, whom he accuses of being worse than the bosses, and has turned to busking the cinema queues. This new arrangement is not to the liking of Mum, a women who is quite content in keeping her small terraced home in an immaculate condition and to prepare and serve the family meals, as long as Dad brings in the money. Also living in the house is the central character Ricky who works in the local cigarette factory, his sister Betsy, her husband Jim and a newly born baby. Ricky gets involved with the local gangsters who plan to rob his work place. He also has an infatuation with one of the criminal’s girl friend’s, Cat. 

Pop singer Mike Sarne.

Bernard Lee, famous for his role as ‘M’ in eleven James Bond films between 1962 and 1979, plays Matt Flint the father, Pop singer Mike Sarne, who had a UK number one hit in 1962 with Wendy Richards called Come Outside, is the unsettled and ambitious Ricky Flint, with Rita Tushingham, a famous face in many sixties movies including A Taste of Honey (1961) and The Leather Boys (1964) is Ricky’s love interest Cat Donovan. You may recognise Doris Hare, who plays house-proud Lil Flint the mother, from the popular TV sitcom On The Buses in which she again played mum. 

The film successfully captures the spirit of the old East End. Unfortunately Clive Exton script has not got the potency of the previously mentioned films, both written by Janet Green, but the cast do their best to overcome the problem. Incedently the film had to wait ten months for its release because at that time Bryanston, an independent film company formed after the collapse of Ealing Studio, was having problems with its distribution network, some things never change.

Joanna

Seventeen-year-old Joanna is cool, stylish, and determined to start a new life as an art student in swinging London. Played with gusto by Genevieve Waite, Joanna indulges in the pleasures of casual sexual encounters, colourful daydreams, and an impromptu trip to Morocco with the wise and debonair Lord Peter Sanderson (wonderfully played by Donald Sutherland). But when Joanna falls in love with Gordon, from Sierra Leone, her life begins to get complicated.

The above is a typical synopsis from what was classified as “Swinging London” these were films generally from the second half of the sixties and included the above Joanna (1968) which was deemed to be the last under this classification. Others included The Knack (1965) Morgan (1966) Blow Up (1966) I’ll Never Forget What’s Is Name (1967) Sebastian (1968) and Up The Junction (1968). These were supposed to reflect the new permissive age along with full employment which meant that every one had a great deal of disposable income, but believe me it was not quite true. A quote from Jeffery Richards book The Revolt of the Young describes the period quite well  ‘The sober realism and earnest social comment of the earlier part of the sixties gave way to fantasy, extravaganza and escapism; black and white photography and Northern locations to colour and the lure of the metropolis; Puritanical self discipline to hedonistic self indulgence; plain truthful settings to flamboyant, unrealistic decorativeness. Films became locked in a heady spiral of mounting extravagance, excitement and faddish innovation” What he meant was these films promoted a mindlessly optimistic view of the world rather than a realistic one with London being shown as the center of the universe for fashion, music and youth culture.

Genevieve Waite

Mike Sarne is a British actor and former pop singer who you may remember had a number one hit with a record he recorded with Wendy Richard in 1962 called “Come Outside’, he also directed Joanna. Walter Lassally, who was responsible for the cinematography in the Free Cinema Documentaries Momma Don’t Allow (1955) and We Are The Lambeth Boys (1958) and two of the British New Wave classics A Taste of Honey (1961) and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), certainly makes London look like a very beautiful city with it bright colour’s, constant summer skys and the smell of money. As the synopsis shows this glossy travelogue is all about a rather irritating young girl who moves to metropolis to sample the ‘good life’ and the freedom to get laid, when and by whom she wishes, the loose living and low morals and all the other excesses of the period: women’s emancipation of the sixties? The movie starts in black and white and then bursts in to colour when Joanna appears at the end of the opening credits and ends with typical corny dance routine with the cast and crew lining up along a railway platform, ring a bell Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire (2008)? Filming also took place in Morocco and as with other films of this type does have a dark underbelly. Donald Sutherland’s British accent has got to be heard to be believed but its an interesting piece and does have the great Scott Walker singing his 1967 UK hit Joanna. But what annoys me about these movies is the attitude that you have got to be rich or your nobody which is such a uniquely different attitude from the British New Wave films at the beginning of the decade or films that followed from directors like Nicolas Roeg, Lindsay Anderson or Ken Loach.