British cinema of the 1950s loved movies about kids. Usually they got involved with a criminal which gave the piece a central relationship. Not here. It's about a girl who grows a garden in a bombed out area. She boards with a nice couple, the father is a struggling waiter, David Kossof - who was also a father figure in Kid with Two Farthings which was a better movie, but more happened in it. Growing a garden isn't that exciting. And this is in black and white in bombed out London - it's not that pretty.
It picks up in the second half when the stakes are larger - the girl's male friend is arrested for fighting an adult who tried to stop them stealing dirt, the girl is put in a home. Things are resolved by a Santa Claus figure, lonely dying cashed up Flora Robson.
I wasn't wild about Kossof kicking out the mother because she's a hooker - to separate someone from their mother felt like it needed another thing. But the film is an honest attempt to make something decent.
Lyndon Brook and Susan Beaumont are ingenues.
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