Hue and Cry (1947)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Hue and Cry (1947) – C. Crichton

Yes, it’s corny at times and doesn’t scale the heights that the best Ealing comedies do, but if taken as a picture for kids, it certainly does the trick.  Amon watched this with me and, although the plot might become elusive at times for an 8 year old, there are enough fun moments to carry the day.  Harry Fowler plays Joe Kirby who discovers that a gang of crooks are using a weekly comic book (called The Trump, no less) to communicate through code about their next evil deeds.  Kirby tracks down the serial’s writer (Alastair Sim) and the publisher before he latches on to the evil mastermind (much closer to hand than expected) and uses an army of boys to dispatch him and his mates.  This is the part that Amon liked most.  For me, the most absorbing element was the location shooting in bombed out London of 1947 – everything seems destroyed but the kids run amok in the rubble.  Those were different times.  Worth a look, particularly if you are an Ealing completist.