Movie review - "The Blue Lamp" (1949) ***

On one hand you can see why this has come to be mocked - I can't recall a police movie where the police sung so much, the class system within the police force is well entrenched with its working class bobbies and educated detectives - but parts of it hold up very well. It feels real, there's some semi-documentary handling, Ted Willis always liked to research his movies and has clearly done so here There's also a dark underbelly: amiable cop Dixon's son has clearly died (one presumes it was the war) - and despite being brave and decent man she's shot by spiv Dirk Bogarde. I know this was going to happen but was surprised it happened so early - about half way through the movie. The rest is a chase.

The working class had rarely been so nobly treated in a drama by the British film industry and they responded by turning out to this in huge numbers. I think audiences also enjoyed being able to deplore the depravities of the new generation - the ones turned trashy and spoilt by the war (an interesting counter-point to the "Greatest Generation" line we got later on) - while going tsk tsk at them at the same time. That's one of the themes of the movie - these young kids who had no respect for law and order, or even professional criminals, were stuffing everything up with their violent ways. Dirk Bogarde is terrific as the wild youth  -sunken cheeks, wild and doomed expression, out of control behaviour. It's a reminder that he really should have played villains more often, he suited them, especially with that air of superiority.

Jack Warner and Jimmy Hanley are bland as the main police bobbies, but Bernard Lee has easy authority as a detective. Anthony Steel has a small role as a (surprise) handsome police bobby - they do give him a prominent close up. Peggy Evans goes overboard as a hysterical girl who falls for Bogarde. Like most Ealing this is very socialist - there's no real one hero, the whole community pitches in to capture Bogarde at the end. It glories in communal joys like singing, living in flats, the cinema and greyhounds. An invaluable time capsule.