Thanks for the memories!

So much average

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Now here's an unpretentious film with no glamour or glitz but keeps you hooked. Move over Hollywood, and give the "Bulldog" his due. The film moves at a pace that would seem a little slow focussing on trivial duties and lifestyles of the London bobby but don't go away the action and human drama starts halfway through and my word does it start moving! Dirk Bogarde is excellent and his portrayal of a petty hoodlum with a psychopathic streak which masks his fear is unforgettable. The bombed out East End of London and the Cockney accent takes one to post-War England. The coppers of yesteryear England did not wear guns and so do most present coppers in the sub-continent today but the director narrates by his tale that this is no walkover for criminals. Watch it.

I can't remember which part of the film has someone saying what "The Blue Lamp" means, but I stuck with this quite good film, and I was thinking of switching off. Basically Jack Warner as PC George Dixon and Jimmy Hanley as PC Andy Mitchell are on the lookout for two criminals who have murdered an officer, and stolen a couple of things. That is pretty much all I can think of to say about the film, because that is all I remember. I think one main reason I wanted to see this film was because of James Bond's Bernard Lee as Insp. Cherry, he wasn't on often though. Also starring Dirk Bogarde as Tom Riley, Robert Flemyng as Sgt. Roberts, Peggy Evans as Diana Lewis, Patric Doonan as Spud, Bruce Seton as PC Campbell and Meredith Edwards as PC Hughes. Considered to many as a classic, for me, only worth seeing once. It won the BAFTA for Best British Film. Okay!

"The Blue Lamp" is a Cockney Epic.Like"Dance Hall"and"It always rains on Sundays"films that drew on London working-class life for their inspiration and the working-class for their audience. Although Ealing is best remembered for its comedies it was perfectly capable of making "issue" pictures,and in "The Blue Lamp" the issue was the increase of violent crime since the second world war which had ended five years previously. It is probable that the catalyst was the De Antiquis murder in 1948 when a gang robbing a Soho jeweller shot a motor-cyclist who tried to intervene. (In the opening sequence a shot of a newspaper reporting this killing is prominent). Firearms brought home as souvenirs by returning servicemen found their way into the hands of petty criminals many of whom had been taught to kill by the government and could not see any difference between killing the enemy and killing a bank clerk. Despite a vigorously pursued policy of corporal and capital punishment,crime rose to what was then an all-time high. It is against this background that "The Blue Lamp" must be considered.It was one of the last films to show "posh"policemen. The characters played by Anthony Steele and William Mervyn are clearly upper middle class,Mervyn's Chief Inspector probably a relic from the discredited Trenchard Scheme whereby the Metropolitan Police recruited it's own officer class in short-sighted (and short-lived)admiration for the military. George Dixon has been at Paddington for 25 years and is on the brink of retirement.His local knowledge is unrivalled,his position in society and his right to exercise power unquestioned.This type of officer and his brand of policing has been consigned to history. Rather like a Western set at the dawn of the 20th century,"The Blue Lamp"in hindsight appears as a picture of a way of life about to be overtaken by progress.It is a world of bombsites,spivs,milk bars and barrow boys.A trolleybus trundles along streets sparse with traffic. Tessie O'Shea is entertaining a music hall audience many of whom could probably remember Marie Lloyd appearing in the same theatre.The new age is represented by ruthless thug Mr Dirk Bogarde.Cunning and cruel,he is nobody's mug.In a scene that still has the power to disturb he shoots Pc Dixon in cold blood at the scene of a robbery.When he suspects his girl friend is about to turn him in he strangles her. The rest of the film is concerned with the police hunt for the killer who will surely hang for his crimes.It is hopelessly old-fashioned in it's unquestioning support for the police.Nobody is counselled,no community representatives are consulted by senior officers leading the hunt and Mr Bogarde's human rights are clearly abused when 2 or 3 rather angry policemen cart him off at the end. Nonetheless "The Blue Lamp" is essential viewing for anybody interested in the development of what might be called English film noir. Many of the exteriors seem to presage the cinema verite movement and it was very influential in the development of the TV cop show from "Dixon of Dock Green" through to "Z Cars" and ultimately "The Bill" although I doubt that George Dixon would recognise the latter as being about the same job unless he had been smoking something very naughty in that pipe of his. Mr Jack Warner plays George Dixon as the archetypal London bobby,a figure who may have never actually existed but who we have felt compelled to invent to invoke a more innocent age when a clip round the ear was rather more effective than an ASBO. Policemen have never been angels,but at least in 1950 they were portrayed as decent ordinary men not violent psychopaths.In those days the villains were the bad guys.Moral equivalence,the "No Blame "culture and all the "isms" that are stunting our society were not even a gleam in a Social Worker's eye.

THE BLUE LAMP is a very famous and popular British film , so popular that it paved the way for an equally famous TV show called DIXON OF DOCK GREEN but it's also a film that hasn't stood the test of time , in fact it's so dated it was satarized in an excellent post modernist teleplay called THE BLACK AND BLUE LAMP in 1988 and after recently seeing this movie I realise that it's a very easy target First of all is the portrayal of the police . Policemen in the 1950s spent their time taking home lost children , looking for dogs that had run away from their owners and practicing their baritone in the station choir ! Good job the crime rate was so low back then because - just like today - they'd never be able to catch criminals . At least watching THE BLUE LAMP you realise why the cops would never be able to catch crims because they seem to smoke over 100 cigarettes a day , no seriously they do and it's pointed out that PC Mitchell doesn't smoke and that's probably why he's able to sprint after Riley at the end with all the other cops at the station destined to die from lung cancer due to the amount of ciggies they smoke . If you've just given up the weed it's a bad idea to watch this movie As in so many other movies from this period the " adolescent " characters are played by actors far too old for the roles . Diana Lewis is quoted as being 17 years old on screen but Peggy Evans who plays her is in fact 25 years old and she looks it , and while the ages of Riley and Spud are never mentioned it's inferred they're not older than 21 , but Patric Doonan and Dirk Bogarde are both in their late 20's while the " twenty five year old Pc Mitchell " is played by Jimmy Hanley who was in his early 30s . It's strange but people in those days all look considerably older than the real ages To give the film its due the climax where Riley finds himself at the stadium being hunted is rather exciting , and " exciting " is not something British films of that era were renowned for . Some people may criticise the idea of dodgy characters going out of their way to help the police but this is logical since the police may return the favour at a later date in not asking too many questions about things falling off the back of lorries . All in all THE BLUE LAMP is a strange film when watched today . It's certainly not a film for cynics and comes across as being very mawkish and sentimental with almost a fairy tale like air . But it should be remembered that in those days a person being murdered during a crime would make national news headlines while a policeman killed in the line of duty would lead to several days national mourning , and of course in those days the police were - If not popular - certainly far more respected than policeman today could ever hope to be so you have to view this film in the context of when it was made . Ironically enough it's also the first movie to use the word " bastard "