In its two-part "Brit noir" miniseries, the Charles' weekly revival showcase veers from an evil Catholic thug in "Brighton Rock" to Jewish and Protestant East Enders in "It Always Rains on Sunday." Set in the bustling neighborhood of Bethnal Green, it mixes a keenly observed day in the life of a working-class family with a startling prison-break melodrama.
The strikingly intelligent and vivid Googie Withers plays a former barmaid comfortably married to a man who's given her two grown stepdaughters and a feisty young stepson. When her former fiance (Edward McCallum) busts out of prison and, starving and exhausted, collapses in her air-raid shelter, the result is a three-ring family circus in which any slapstick stings and the billy-clubs are real.
The director, Robert Hamer, who also helped write the script, pulls off feats of narrative juggling and sleight-of-hand while bringing a dozen characters to boisterous life. They include a sax-player with wandering eyes (Sydney Tafler) and his super-slick brother (John Slater), who owns an amusement arcade and fixes local fights. Add an unholy trio of small-time thieves, an infuriatingly self-important fence, an intrepid police inspector and an irrepressible reporter, and you've got a revelation per minute for a film that clocks in at a swift hour and a half.
When Withers tucks her fugitive ex-lover into her marriage bed so he can get his strength back, it's because she knows her husband will eat his dinner, take a nap on his couch, then go off to his pub. That tells you everything about the force of habit in this household. When her stepdaughters don't raise a finger to help her with Sunday dinner, their inaction speaks pulp volumes about this family's strains.
Director Hamer brings all the turmoil and action in this movie to a point of crystalline clarity. In a climactic chase, railroad tracks and freight cars and escape routes criss-cross crazily, yet the outcome is persuasive and inevitable. "It Always Rains on Sunday" plays Monday night and Thursday night, too, but I think it's the perfect picture for a Saturday afternoon.
"It Always Rains on Sunday" screens at noon Saturday, 7 p.m. on Monday and at 9 p.m. on Thursday at the Charles Theatre, 1711 N. Charles St. Tickets are $7.50-$9.50.
michael.sragow@baltsun.com