Main Cast: Douglas Barr, Alastair Sim, Valerie White, Jack Warner, Joan Dowling, Harry Fowler
Release Year: 1947
Country: UK
Run Time: 82 minutes
Plot
Alastair Sim is a delight to behold as always in the British Hue and Cry, but the film's true star is approximately 40 years younger and two feet shorter than the estimable Sim. Harry Fowler plays Joe Kirby, an intelligent cockney lad who is addicted to a weekly boys' magazine. He begins to notice a curious pattern emerging in the dialogue of a serialized blood-and-thunder detective story. And well he should: a gang of literate crooks are using that story to transmit information concerning robberies, smuggling, fencing, and the like. When the local constabulary refuse to take Joe's warnings seriously, he rallies his chums together to foil the crooks. Elements of Hue and Cry would later pop up in several American films, including the Bowery Boys' Angels in Disguise (1949) and the Jack Carson vehicle The Good Humor Man (1950). This is only fair, since T.E.B. Clarke's screenplay is inspired in part by the old German perennial Emil and the Detectives. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
John Hudson - Stan; Frederick Piper - Mr. Kirby; Grace Arnold - Dicky's Mother; Bruce Belfrage - BBC Announcer; Howard Douglas - Watchman; Alec Finter; Vida Hope; Robin Hughes - Selwyn Pike; Jack Lambert - Inspector Ford; Dandy Nichols; Paul Demel - Sago; James Crabbe; Ernest Hughes - Wally; Arthur Denton - Vicar; Stanley Escane; John Hughes; Ian Dawson; Gerald Fox; David Simpson; Albert Hughes; David Knox; Jeffrey Sirett; Heather Delaine; Joe E. Carr; Henry Purvis
It is generally considered to be the first of the "Ealing comedies", although it is better characterised as a thriller for children. Shot almost entirely on location, it is now a notable historic document due to its vivid portrait of a London still showing the damage of World War II. London forms the backdrop of a crime-gangster plot which revolves around a working-classchildren's street culture and children's secret clubs.
