No Trees in the Street

I wanted to watch this having just seen J Lee Thompson's earlier one of Diana Dors in Yield to the Night (1956). This is not quite as good as that one but it was much better than I thought it might have been. It was surprisingly good that the East End slums were made to be more realistic than sentimental. The screenplay was by Ted Willis from his original play and with great dialogue. Of course Herbert Lom is impressive, even if I didn't expect he would have been in a kitchen sink drama. Sylvia Syms is also good although I did find the young Melvyn Hayes was rather annoying and I had never really liked him such as in Summer Holiday (1963) or many of his many TV series like, It Ain't Half Hot Mum (1974-1981) but I suppose he just about holds it together in this. Stanley Holloway is great and almost sings more than talks and certainly does in this and he could certainly do his authentic Cockney voice.

NO TREES IN THE STREET is a mildly dull slice of social commentary from future Hollywood director J. Lee Thompson. It's the kind of film that plays out in a slow and sedate kind of way, never really sure what it wants to be; there are elements of kitchen sink drama, police procedural and gangster thriller along the way, but it never really succeeds as any of those genres. It's the kind of film which simply "is". The wraparound section with Ronald Lewis and a youthful David Hemmings doesn't really add to the narrative at all, and in the end you only watch thanks to the performances of some interesting cast members: tough Sylvia Sims, blind Liam Redmond, bad lad Melvyn Hayes (randomly receiving an 'introducing' credit despite having been acting for nearly a decade at this point), sinister Herbert Lom and larger-than-life Stanley Holloway.

It has been over fifty years since I first saw this movie, but the wait was worth it. The acting is good, with Melvyn Hayes just a little over dramatic as the doomed lad Tommy. Herbert Lom and Sylvia Sims, are both excellent as the local gang boss and the girl he desires more than anything in the world. High praise also for the actors who play the desperate mother, the kindly, wise blind man, and the crooked former music hall entertainer who provides amusement for his neighbors with his song and dance routines. Settings are bleak and realistically shabby.. with a vivid sense of the daily grind of life on Kennedy Street. A few historical touches are nicely worked in, with an Oswald Mosley slogan chalked on a wall, and a newsboy hawking a 1938 headline about Hitler threatening Czechoslovakia. I had forgotten how grim the movie is . The sense of desperation and hopelessness caused by the poverty of the residents, made worse by heavy drinking to relieve the misery., is starkly convincing. Maybe not a great film, but well worth seeing if you can find it. Pretty rare.

In the sixties ,a detective catches a young thief red-handed ; remembering the sad fate of a youngster in the thirties, he wishes the same wouldn't happen to him too. At a time there were no trees in the street,a family would live in poverty , hand-to-mouth ; The cast is excellent : Tommy (Melvin Hayes) as the young hoodlum , under the influence of a sinister gangster (terrifying Herbert Lom) who covets his lovely sister ( moving Sylvia Syms,a victim of circumstances) ; supporting cast is up to scratch ,particularly the always reliable Stanley Holloway as "Kipper' (sic) .It's mainly the tragic story of a poor boy whose fate is sealed from the very beginning.

A what seems corny film,draws you in to highly emotional and moving finale

Melvyn Hayes plays Tommy, a teenager who is only to readily lead astray by Herbert Lom's character 'Wilkie'. Tommy's sister (Sylvia Syms) tries to help Tommy whilst being a love interest for Wilkie. Shot on a budget, but well-adapted for cinema, this is several steps above an average kitchen sink drama of the time. Hayes' performance is slightly overwrought, Lom's is accomplished, and Syms' is surprisingly sensitive. Interesting that the new high-rise flats of the time were deemed 'better' than the old back to backs.... but now things have turned full circle and the high rises are coming down in favour of more conventional streets once more. Overall an interesting period piece, worth watching.

Please, not again. How many times are they going to recycle these faux noirs, The Good Die Young, Cosh Boy, It Always Rains On Sunday, The Blue Lamp et al. This is a would-be noir that fits where it touches and while it's risible to see Ronald Howard attempting to act tough and making Charles Hawtrey look like Charles Bronson, there is some half decent emoting on the quiet. In something-for-everyone screenplay we get Liam Redmond as half seer, half Larry Adler, Sylvia Syms as Girl-in-next-ghetto, Stanley Holloway as alky raconteur, all it lacks is the Dead End kids or, in this case, the East End kids, with Harry Fowler as Leo Gorcey.

The story is much used – a family being dragged down by their dead end street – but this one stands up okay. Hetty (Sylvia Sims) is caught between tearaway brother Michael (Melvyn Hayes) and smoothy gangster Wilkie (Herbert Lom). While Ronald Howard's Frank dances a fine line between being a cop and supporting his neighbourhood. A decent story develops as Frank, Michael & Wilkie weave in and out of Hetty's life. The film introduces a number of rich supporting characters to complement the story. The actors measure their roles well although Hayes' emotion tends to grate. Lom is the pick as the gangster who can switch between menacing and tender without any difficulty. 7 out of 10

No Trees in the Street is directed by J. Lee Thompson and adapted from his own play by Ted Willis. It stars Sylvia Syms, Herbert Lom, Ronald Howard, Melvyn Hayes and Stanley Holloway. Music is by Laurie Johnson and cinematography by Gilbert Taylor. Capturing a young tearaway, a London copper tells the youngster a story from a couple of decades earlier. It's about a family living in the slums of the East End, of a pretty daughter getting involved with the local racketeer, of the young impressionable son turning to crime, it's of their fates, trials and tribulations. Part kitchen sink plotter, part noir melodrama, No Trees in the Street is thin on story but big on heart. Ted Willis is guilty of not fully pushing the drama through in his adaptation, getting caught between making a potent anti-crime piece and that of a mawkish "we had it tough back then" nostalgia trip. That said, the tale does hold tight throughout, and all the characters are nicely drawn and placed within a depressingly real backdrop. The means, motives and decisions involving some of them are cutting, keeping the narrative edgy, while the cast performances are bang on the money for such a screenplay. Bonus comes with Taylor's (Ice Cold in Alex/Repulsion) photography, which come the second half of film dresses it all up in noir nirvana. 6/10

Ted Willis was hardly at the edge of social realism after all it was he who introduced us to Dixon of Dock Green.Whilst the works of Pinter,Osborne and Whitehouse live on Willis is totally forgotten.This film was clearly intended to latch on to this trend and fails miserably.The film has poor attention to detail.The film is supposed to be set in the thirties but all styles are contemporary to the time of filming in the fifties.The film is studio bound and lends to the air of artificiality.The film commits the cardinal sin,it fails to entertain.