The Blue Lamp 1950 DvdRip Avi Lee1001

The Blue Lamp 1950 DvdRip Avi Lee1001



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042265/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Lamp

January 9, 1951

THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; 'Blue Lamp,' British Import, With Jack Warner, Unveiled at Park Avenue Theatre

By BOSLEY CROWTHER

A warm and affectionate tribute to the London metropolitan police in the daily performance of their duties is cleverly interlaced with a good running crime melodrama of a conspicuously realistic sort in the British-made film, "The Blue Lamp," which came to the Park Avenue Theatre yesterday. Full of fresh human interest touches, as well as honest admiration for the police, this film combines lively entertainment with a solid chunk of social argument.



So congenial and familiar is this picture in its initial approaches, indeed, that it early assumes the characteristics of a documentary about the police. And one might suspect at the beginning that it is going to be one of those jobs describing the London "bobby," his life, his work—and no more. For the initial personality introductions and accumulation of pictorial evidence are centered around the "bobbies" of the station at Paddington Green, with quaint glimpses of their mundane duties and their prosaic habits at home.



And in this limited area, the camera's observations are such as to stimulate genial amusement and arouse little expectation of any more. There's the "bobby" who knows the neighborhood children and has a hobby of raising flowers; there's the one he and his wife take in as lodger. And there's the station-house choral group. The pungent flavor of a London police station, marked by the traditional "blue lamp," is in this film.



But then the accumulation of a compounding act of crime, committed by a pair of juvenile hoodlums assisted by a neighborhood girl, is smartly insinuated; and the first thing the bland observer knows, the whole film is racing pell-mell in the toils of a manhunt and chase, with one of our favorite "bobbies" murdered and the force, including detectives, in pursuit.



T. E. B. Clarke has written a most fluid and cleverly jointed script and Basil Dearden has directed it in a stunningly naturalistic style. Especially is a sizzling wind-up in White City Stadium, with the killer pursued among the patrons and the bookies at a dog-racing meet, executed with fascinating demonstration of local atmosphere.



And a large cast of excellent actors has been handled beautifully, with such well-known performers as Jack Warner and Robert Flemyng doing modest roles. Mr. Warner, Jimmy Hanley and Meredith Edwards are notably good as uniformed police, and Mr. Flemyng and Bernard Lee (of "The Third Man") do detectives excellently. Dirk Bogarde is unhealthy and malevolent as the leader of the juvenile gang, with Patric Doonan and Peggy Evans playing his associates well.



This film was produced by Michael Balcon as a national service, obviously. But it was one of the most popular pictures to show in Britain last year, and it well deserved that popularity. It should meet with limited but warm success here.



Introducing PC George Dixon (Warner), charged with showing new boy Andy Mitchell (Hanley) the ropes. There is helping old ladies and giving directions, until the film takes a darker turn when Dixon is killed in a raid on a cinema. The killer (a great turn from young Bogarde) is presented as part of a new breed of post-war criminals, without a code or honour, and even the respectable criminals want to help the police track him down. While the police are presented in an idealized way, London looks a fantastic playground, never more so than in the climactic showdown at White City.



Dixon, of course, would be revived and live on for 20 years on TV.



Perhaps the most famous crime drama in British cinema, and certainly one of Ealing Studios’ best known films, The Blue Lamp introduced a character who would become familiar to the British public for over twenty years. P.C. George Dixon, played by the avuncular Jack Warner, was killed off halfway through this film but reappeared five years later, in remarkably good health, as the main character of the hugely popular BBC television series Dixon of Dock Green, which ran for 430 episodes between 1955 and 1976. It was the second most successful resurrection in history.



Author: malcolmgsw from london

20 September 2005

When the Blue Lamp was released i was around 3 years old.I therefore do remember the London that it shows.To me the film is more interesting in what it reveals about the London of 1950 than the actual story.It shows the Metropolitan Music hall in the Edgware Road.It was in the last few years of its life before the A4 cutting a swathe into London meant that it was demolished for "progress".Music Hall by this time was in its last throes and what was left would be rendered extinct by the arrival of ITV.

We see the Colloseium in Harlesden.Every High Street had cinemas like this.If you look carefully you will see that they were showing "Granny Get Your Gun" a 1940 "B" feature with May Robson.So it was probably a second run house.There are the bomb sites.I remember that in certain parts of London,particularly the East End there mere were more such sites than actual buildings.The streets do not have a great deal of traffic as there was little traffic at that time.So a film of some sociological interest



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Duration.... 01:21:18

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Frame Width..... 640

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