It Always Rains on a Sunday Details

Drama and social commentary

'It always rains on a Sunday' observes George Sandigate (Edward Chapman) to his wife Rose (Googie Withers) at the beginning of this film, as the rain pours down outside the window of their terraced house in Bethnal Green. But for Rose the rain is also in her heart, for a glance at that morning's 'News of the World' has brought back bittersweet memories of lost love. The dangerous criminal who has just broken out of Dartmoor is none other than Tommy Swann (John McCallum), the man Rose would have married if he had not been sent to prison for armed robbery. Googie Withers gives a brilliant performance as Rose, who struggles to balance her memories of the past with her fears of the changed Tommy who has returned, her present love for her husband and son and her difficult relationship with her two teenage stepdaughters. Rose appears as a hard, difficult woman, but a woman whose actions are understandable and with whom viewers may sympathise despite all her faults. The rest of the family and the whole community in which they live are convincingly portrayed: we see their relationships with friends and acquaintances, their ups and downs, and the complex social network of London's East End. Through it all moves Detective-Sergeant Fothergill (Jack Warner), hot on the trail of Tommy Swann and other crooks, and the film climaxes in an exciting chase through rain-swept streets after dark. In many ways this film resembles a TV soap opera, and it is a pity that it wasn't continued in a sequel. Although the characters' lives are hard and the overall tone is pessimistic, the post-war realism of the film makes it absorbing viewing for adults and older children. But it is not a comedy and younger children may find it rather frightening.

[Highly rated reviewer]

more family drama than thriller

More about life on the grim streets of Bethnal Green, the matriarch of a family is compromised when an old love of hers is on the run and turns up to hide at her house. This causes all sorts of conflicts while she tries fit the subterfuge into the everyday lives. It all works up to a tense ending and the open suggestion that there will be consequences.