Robert Hamer's It Always Rains on Sunday

Hamer shows people trapped in situations where their family and community and daily life have already had passion (and the word is meant to have wide connotations) drained out of them.
--Charles Barr, Ealing Studios (The Overlook Press, 1980)


There are many ways of looking at Hamer's rich and complex British film It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) from its ironic title (Sunday is the one day that the East Enders of the film have off from work, if they have any day) to its role in director Robert Hamer's career (I wrote about Hamer's Scapegoat on May 20, 2014) to its importance to Ealing Studios, where it was made at a point when Ealing was making mostly comedies.  It is considered to be something of a precursor to John Osborne and other kitchen-sink realists of the 50's but was also seen by film historian William K. Everson as a British noir, closely related to America films of the post-war period.  It is a significant role for skillful actress Googie Withers, who is superb as a working-class housewife hiding her former lover when he escapes from prison, and the film is beautifully photographed by Douglas Slocombe

Withers plays Rose, who lives with her much older husband and two stepdaughters.  The stepdaughters have to share a bed in the cramped flat and baths have to be taken in the cramped kitchen, where there is barely room to eat around the small table.  When Rose's lover Tom escapes from prison and sneaks into Rose's flat the only food she can offer --since things are still being rationed -- is "bread and marge."  Hamer and Slocombe effectively portray not only the claustrophobia of the family flat, but also of the crowded streets and grimy pubs, filled with spivs and scammers of all sorts.  There are multiple sub-plots, as Rose's stepdaughters try to find men who will rescue them from the East End and the petty criminals try to outwit the police.  Rose makes love to Tom who then escapes when a reporter knocks at the door.  Tom steals a car, then a bicycle and ends up in a trainyard where he is captured.  Rose is overcome by guilt and tries to gas herself but is rescued by her understanding husband.   Like James Joyce's Ulysses, which takes place on June16, 1904, It Always Rains on Sunday takes place on one day:  March 23, 1947 (though one needs to notice the calendars in the films to be aware of the date)