Victim (1961)

Der extreme Höhepunkt des absoluten Kinos in Bezug auf die Basil-Dearden-Filmsaison.

Victim (1961) is a classic British later late period film noir blackmail and homosexuality socio public crime and mystery social issue internalised homophobia Basil Dearden lousy husband thriller noir which as well as being the the first British film to explicitly name homosexuality and deal with it sympathetically, is a sneak look into the male queer London underground as it affected lives high and low, pub going and inner court, bookshop and barber shop, and starring Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Syms, Dennis Price, Anthony Nicholls, Peter Copley, Norman Bird and Peter McEnery as Jack "Boy" Barrett.

The League of Gentlemen (1960)

De la saison Basil Dearden, c’est le moment absolument suprême, certainement l’un des moments forts.

The League of Gentlemen (1960) is a Basil Dearden criminal melodrama disgruntled and disgraced returning veteran multiple lousy husband heist and caper movie from the cusp of the sixties and the final gasp of the fifties before the post war spirit collapsed into an English society as irony as empire ends style of comedy noir starring Jack Hawkins, Nigel Patrick, Roger Livesey, Richard Attenborough, Bryan Forbes, Kieron Moore, Terence Alexander, Norman Bird, Robert Coote, Melissa Stribling, and Nanette Newman.

A Place to Go (1963)

Une étape intéressante et moins connue de la saison Basil Dearden combine le « kitchen sink » et le film noir.

A Place to Go (1963) is a British Basil Dearden rare kitchen sink and crime combo feature teenage pop hit social commentary and 1960s reconstruction heist and youth dating and romance drama starring Bernard Lee, Rita Tushingham, and Michael Sarne. 

Frieda (1947)

Zu Beginn der Basil-Dearden-Filmsaison hattest du noch nie von diesem kraftvollen, vom Holocaust inspirierten Anti-Nazi-Film-noir-Klassiker über einen heimkehrenden Veteranen gehört.

Frieda (1947) is a Basil Dearden British returning veteran World War Two anti-German sentiment in post war society and unrepentant Nazi brother stiff upper lip tension and xenophobia bucolic and Arcadian bar room punch up social issue romance and integration tear jerker film noir of longing and hope, of the holocaust itself rare and yet displayed in full X rated horror, displaying 1940s fig in a tale of national forgiveness and starring Glynis Johns, David Farrer and Mai Zetterling, and how terribly, terribly wrong it is to treat people as less than human.

The Halfway House (1944)

The magic of the cinematic British dreamer's war against the World War is best expressed and exposed in today's contribution to the Classic Film Noir Basil Dearden Season.

The Halfway House (1944) is a Basil Dearden magical and psychological fantasy comic war-time time-travelling redemption and reverie and realisation ensemble mystery poetic haunted pub drama of ghosts and idylls and pasts hidden and difficult relationships and grief, and wartime spirit tested in the most inventive and spiritual manner, set in an Arcadian wartime Welsh countryside, and starring Glynis Johns, Tom Walls, Françoise Rosay, as well as the resplendent and pastorally beneficent dominion of Cambria.

The Gentle Gunman (1952)

The season devoted to Basil Dearden should certainly include this curious and often overlooked film, which stands as a revealing example of his craftsmanship and of the thoughtful social concerns that quietly animate much of his work.

The Gentle Gunman (1952) is a rarely seen post-war English Limey gem wartime Blitz set Ealing take on Irish republican resistance paramilitary operation resistance and internecine war and peace moral Northern Ireland rural and Belfast-based discursive and at times genial and at times brutal adventure drama with Dirk Bogarde, John Mills, Elizabeth Sellars, Robert Beatty and also stars James Kenney who is better historically and famously known round these here parts as Cosh Boy, for he is such.

The Secret Partner (1961)

The Basil Dearden season addresses the early sixties with one of his noirnormative middle class mystery concoctions.

The Secret Partner (1961) is a Basil Dearden dockside dental blackmail investigative managerial executive officer heist and mystery man in the night early sixties Limey British film noir adventure thriller with Stuart Granger, Haya Harareet, Bernard Lee, with Hugh Burden, Norman Bird and Lee Montague. 

The Green Man (1956)

A classic in its own style, time and place, and an essential highpoint of any Basil Dearden season.

The Green Man (1956) is splendid if not classic British comedy two act farcical assassination Basil Dearden black comedy about international terrorism with a zany lady orchestrazia, starring Alistair Sim, George Cole, Jill Adams, Avril Angers, Terry Thomas LOL, Dora Bryan, John Chandos, Colin Gordon, Cyril Chamberlain, Doris Yorke, Vivienne Wood, Arthur Brough, Marie Burke, Peter Bull, Willoughby Goddard, Arthur Lowe, Michael Ripper and Terence Alexander.

Violent Playground (1958)

The Basil Dearden season continues, presenting many noir-adjacent films that are more the by product of the medium than its core element, dealing with teenage, social and criminal problems and the police effort to present social reason for the increasing use of machine guns by school students.

Violent Playground (1958) is a Basil Dearden teenage tearaway race relations British battle of wills between a Liverpool Juvenile Liaison officer and a young and dangerous pyromaniac rock n roll social problem picture movie response to the alarmist, hugely successful teen melodrama The Blackboard Jungle (US, 1955) James Kennaway scripted inspired by an actual experiment that was carried out in Liverpool in 1949 late period Limey noir crime and civic anxiety fusion and social confusion picture starring Stanley Baker, Anne Heywood, David McCallum, Peter Cushing, John Slater and Clifford Evans.

Dead of Night (1945)

Your every Basil Dearden season must include this delighting wonder of British forties filmation, a classic of several kinds and dear to all  Deardenians.

Dead of Night (1945) is a super classic anthology supernatural horror film noir themed portmanteau mixture of ghoulish spooky weird and comic misadventure with a framed narrative and fever pitched all time classic ventriloquist dummy anthology film in which the narratives spiral from spectral visitations to prophetic terror to outright, feral possession, each tale recounted by those who survived its ordeal. These confessions are bound together by a single, unsettling guest who claims an impossible intimacy with the house, the host, and the assembled company, recognizing them not from life but from a recurring nightmare he has endured relentlessly, a nightmare that has rehearsed this very gathering long before it came grotesquely true.

I Believe in You (1952)

To mount a Basil Dearden season is an unusual idea and of course, one that resists the orthodox rhythms of repertory programming, and yet, and yet, and yet here is that season all the same. The Basil Dearden Season continues next with:

I Believe in You (1952) is an earnest British flashback and voiceover ex-Colonial Office probation officer seeks leisure and seeks social service courtroom-based teenage tearaway and juvenile threat social conscience anti-fun-fair young love and petty crime social melodrama modest Ealing drama exposing post imperial exhaustion, moral fog, bureaucratic hopefulness, and social ache, where reform curdles, idealism bruises, and British decency quietly erodes under persistence film noir by Basil Dearden, and starring Joan Collins, Laurence Harvey, Cecil Parker, Harry Fowler and Sid James.

Pool of London (1951)

The notion of a Basil Dearden season remains an unexpected and quietly subversive curatorial gesture.

Pool of London (1951) is a post war race relations smuggling offbeat classic British film noir customs officers and river police dockyard and barroom melodramatic crime story in a realistic setting procedural race against time thriller of the river underworld, so declared, and which is of note for portraying the first interracial relationship in a British film.

Sapphire (1959)

Nobody requested a Basil Dearden season but when it came it was as welcomed as that of any other noir  favourite. So let's continue the season with this Dearden diamond in the rough.

Sapphire (1959) is a Basil Dearden police procedural violence against women cops playing with ladies underwear British limey deep racial tensions and civil rights and exceptionally rare passing-as-white Black British experience racism and bigotry murder mystery film noir starring Nigel Patrick, Yvonne Mitchell, Michael Craig, and Paul Massie. Progressive to a degree that borders on provocation for its historical moment, the film squarely addresses the everyday racism inflicted upon West Indian immigrants in London while anatomizing the buried insecurities, unspoken fears, and quietly festering hostilities of ordinary people when confronted with those they have racialized as other.

The Square Ring (1953)

The actuated conception of a Basil Dearden season feels anomalous within conventional retrospectives. But here it is nonethesame.

The Square Ring (1953) is a Basil Dearden mugs' game boxing single evening at a cheap stadium clinches and clichés portmanteau style based on a play British film noir long lost era of Limey filmmaking melodrama in which a trembling neophyte is hurled into ritualized violence opposite a decaying former champion clawing desperately for one final gasp of relevance, while a hysteria-stricken wife issues ultimatums from the domestic front, the corrupt machinery of a backstage fix grinds unseen, and the camera assaults the viewer with feverish close-ups of ringsiders baying for blood and entire rows of spectators convulsing in grotesque pantomime, their fists punching the air as if possessed by the fight itself.

The Ship That Died of Shame (1955)

The Ship That Died of Shame (1955) is a wartime flashback Basil Dearden nautical noir smuggling returning veteran adventure bereavement melancholy crime and coastguard foggy channel rockin manly 50s British film noir, which does ultimately serve noir but manages to swerve noir, while being a good yarn and ripping adventure, with the tragic bombing of a wife and the original sound stage equipped with aides throwing buckets of water over the actors during the rougher sea segments of the shooting, a surefire Limey seafaring movie staple.

This film has an Alfie Bass bonus. It has a Bill Owens count that is among the highest in film noir.

The Blue Lamp (1950)

The Blue Lamp (1950) is a Limey crimey ensemble cast classic British police procedural and Ealing produced state of the nation values-led post-War copper drama, directed by Basil Dearden and starring Jack Warner, Dirk Bogarde, Bernard Lee, Peggy Evans, and is about as non-noir as it gets, while still being entirely relevant to the crime wave fevered press narratives of the day. 

its about the bonhomie and salt of the earth morality of the constables, all working men with values that we might like to interpret as British and are seen giving directions, and actually helping elderly women across the road. They even appear to have a separate division titled 'Women Police' (26:10).