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.

Waterloo Road (1945)

Waterloo Road (1945) is a wartime flashback and voiceover absent without leave soldier versus civvy philandering conscription-dodger tale of British pluck and courage and directed by Sidney Gilliat with Trümmerfilm overtones and starring John Mills, Alistair Sim, Joy Shelton and Stuart Granger.

Waterloo Road (1945) presents itself, at first glance, as an agreeably told anecdote of domestic turbulence during the Second World War, yet such phrasing obscures the severity of its intervention.