Once a Sinner (1950) User Reviews

The Reformatory Girl.

[hitchcockthelegend · 6/10 · 20 July 2014]

There is very little known and written about as regards Lewis Gilbert's Once a Sinner. It's one of those British "B" noir productions that hasn't been readily available to Brit Noir completists. Thankfully some stalwart noir peeps have kept it topical via internet forums and it does have an official DVD release now.

Once a Sinner is very British. The backdrop is quintessentially of the British period, a place of terrace houses, smoky public houses and working class citizens trawling the wet streets that are dimly lit by bulbous lamps. The dialect and delivery is also very correct in the British mannerisms of the time, and crucially the class divide and society's reaction to our main character is born out by the film makers.

Adapted to the screen by David Evans from the novel "Irene" written by Ronald Marsh, it's a film dealing with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who steals the heart of a well to do man and subsequently flips his life upside down. Peer and parental pressure snobbery is abound as Irene James (Pat Kirkwood) and John Ross (Jack Watling) try to battle through the emotional maze pitched in front of them. But with a crooked ex-lover (the wonderful Sydney Tafler) refusing to go away, Irene's chances of finally making a go of life seems remote.

For the most part the pace is slow and the picture is very dialogue heavy. Ronald Binge's musical score also confuses the issue of just what type of film this wants to be, it's all very breezy and akin to one of those lovely old Ealing comedies that were made with some wry social commentaries. That is until the last quarter is reached and the piece moves onto a different plane...

Gilbert and cinematographer Frank North introduce ominous visuals as Binge's music becomes more sinister in tone. It is here where Once a Sinner earns its noir badge, the narrative becomes devil like and the pay off is straight out of noirville. It's most assuredly a fitting reward for those having the patience to stay with Gilbert's movie during the more laborious passages. 6.5/10

Fun somewhat over-wrought UK melodrama.

[gordonl56 · 7/10 · 25 December 2007]

A somewhat overwrought UK melodrama with some nice noir flourishes. This is the second time I've seen this one, but this time I have a much better print. DVD sure beats the old beat up VHS I had.

Jack Watling is an up and coming banker with the perfect life. He has a good job, a loving family, and a lovely fiancée, Joy Shelton. He is on the right track and knows it.

Everything changes the day meets the "wrong side of the tracks girl", Patricia Kirkwood. Watling falls hard for Kirkwood and dumps fiancée Shelton. Local tongues wag and Watling's parents are less than pleased with his actions.

Watling could care less about the gossip and talks Kirkwood into a quick wedding. The two settle down and seem happy. They both do their best to win over Watlings parents. All seems great.

That is till the always oily Sydney Tafler puts in a visit. Tafler, a small time crook and all round low-life, is also Kirkwood's ex. Tafler would like a few words with the new husband. Did Watling know that his blushing bride had done a bit in prison? Or that she and Tafler have a 4 year old daughter.

Watling is floored. He quickly shows Kirkwood the door and returns to his family and friends. A heartbroken Kirkwood goes back to Tafler in tears.

Several weeks later, a Police Inspector, Stuart Lindsell, visits the bank for a talk with Watling. It seems that Tafler is passing fake bank notes and the police believe Kirkwood to be involved.

Watling now finds out that his mother, Edith Sharpe, has been withholding letters from Kirkwood. In the letters, she asks Watling to forgive her and take her back. Watling realizes that he still loves Kirkwood and decides to rescue Kirkwood from slime-ball Tafler. He travels to his digs for a showdown. He gives the bounder a right thrashing and grabs up Kirkwood.

On the train back, Watling says they need to get the counterfeit note business cleaned up even if it costs him his job at the bank.

Watling falls asleep and Kirkwood leaves the compartment. She loves Watling deeply but does want to cause him any more grief. She waits for the train to pick speed and then tosses herself out onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train.

Several minutes later, the same Police Inspector, Lindsell, riding the same train back on business, wakes Watling. "I just wanted to tell you that your wife was no longer under suspicion." The film starts a bit slow, but does pack a punch at the finish.

Again, I must say, what a great ending! Watling was in DANGEROUS CARGO, MR ARKADIN and STRYKER OF THE YARD. Tafler, who made a career out of playing lowlifes, was in IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAYS, UNEASY TERMS, ASSASSIN FOR HIRE, MYSTERY JUNCTION, THE SCARLET THREAD, WIDE BOY, THE VENETIAN BIRD, OPERATION DIPLOMAT, THE GLASS CAGE, DIAL 999, THE LONG ARM, INTERPOL, THE COUNTERFEIT PLAN and BANK RAIDERS.

The screenplay was by David Evans whose work includes, THE LATE EDWINA BLACK, STRANGE INTRUDER and PORTRAIT FROM LIFE. The D of P was Frank North whose only other noir credit is, THE GOLD EXPRESS.

This is an early film from director Lewis Gilbert. Gilbert's work includes, THERE IS ANOTHER SUN, SCARLET THREAD, COSH BOY, THE GOOD DIE YOUNG, CAST A DARK SHADOW. Among his later works are, MOONRAKER, HMS DEFIANT, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, ALFIE, SINK THE BISMARK, EDUCATING RITA and SHIRLEY VALENTINE.

My Introduction to Patricia Kirkwood

[howardmorley · 6/10 · 5 February 2013]

I awarded this film 6/10 and can imagine this was a "B" film in cinemas circa 1950 when it was first released.Although reviewer "gordonl56" from Canada provides a basic plot line, it contains an error which is that Thora Hird does not play Jack Watling's mother but Pat Kirkwood's.His mother is played by Edith Sharpe.This reviewer also mentions some Sydney Tafler's oily parts he played in films.I would like to mention a sympathetic role he played namely the chief physiotherapist who helps Douglas Bader (Kenneth More)to walk again with artificial legs in "Reach for the Sky" (1956) - another Lewis Gilbert directed film.

I enjoyed seeing that big "lug" of an actor Danny Green who played Pat Kirkwood's step father Ticker James, (as I did seeing him in the Ealing comedy, "The Lady Killers".I was pleasantly amused seeing this film for the first time.Was that again Brighton used as a location in the opening shots?Jack Watling was especially notable playing 4th officer Joseph Boxall in the 1958 film "A Night to Remember".

Smut

[evans-15475 · 7/10 · 26 May 2022]

It's funny we think the sexual revolution started in the sixties but this is another film from the early 50s with an underlying feeling of smut the only difference being a feeling of shame which I assume the censor insisted on.

Not forgotten after fifty years.

[tynesider · 3/10 · 27 December 2007]

I saw this picture in the mid-fifties and it has always stayed in my mind, mainly because of the playing of Sydney Tafler as Jim Smart, a small-time crook whose death by stabbing outside a Church reminds me of the climax to one of the great gangster pictures (was it Edward G's death on the steps in Little Caesar or was that Cagney in Public Enemy, I've forgotten which). The notice on the church wall behind Tafler reads 'Repent Ye Sinners, While Ye Can'. Tafler's wife Joy Shelton also has a role and the rest of the cast contains many British stalwarts of the era, Thora Hird, Danny Green and the recently deceased Pat Kirkwood among them. The film also has a character called Creeping Charlie whose speciality is throwing acid, an interestingly sinister, if minor, villain. A lot of the early scenes were rather dialogue-heavy, but there were a few things to like. This was a 'B' picture and not very good, but was one of the early films of director Lewis Gilbert who went on to far better things.

Lacks Credibility

[malcolmgsw · 5/10 · 4 December 2013]

The main problem with this film was its lack of credibility and at times lack of clarity.It takes a long stretch of the imagination to believe that Watling would off and marry Kirkwood after just 6 meetings,without him looking rather more deeply into her background.Little surprise that the marriage breaks down.However when his parents come to see him at the flat that Watling and Kirkwood had lived in,his father gives him letters that Kirkwood had sent to him via the parents.Now why didn't she just write to him direct?Watling then goes down to London to find Kirkwood.She is tied up again with Tafler.He takes her on some sort of job where despite the fact that she cant drive he asks her to drive.When they arrive at the destination Tafler is mortally wounded by the killers arranged by the sinister looking head of the forgers.However we are not told the reason for Tafler being killed.Kirkwood says she doesn't know were she is but manages to get Tafler back to the right address.After all this Watling takes her back but she thinks better of it and throws herself from the train.Maybe at only 76 minutes there was just too much plot and some strands were removed.I think that the location shooting must have taken place in Blackpool.How by the way do you explain that Thora Hird,with her Northern accent has a son,Harry Fowler,who is pure cockney!

Not Our Sort

[boblipton · 5/10 · 15 December 2023]

Middle-class bank clerk Jack Watling meets hoydenish Pat Kirkwood, and before you know it, they're married. When he meets her family, they're boisterous and none too respectable. The breaking point comes when he discovers she has a child with crook Sydney Tafler. She's never told him and is mildly puzzled when he says she should want to be with the youngster. But the lure of the flesh is too strong, until she leaves him to return to Tafler and her own ways.

It is a very middle-class and class-ridden sort of movie, in which bad people are bad and cannot reform. In Miss Kirkwood's case, it's because she simply doesn't feel the way Watling thinks people should wish to behave. As an American, I find intensely annoying, not just for Watling's lazy assumptions about how people should behave, but the irredeemibility of the under classes; as the title indicates, there's no way out of being a bad woman.

Rather dated

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 28 October 2018]

ONCE A SINNER is a B-movie character drama about a love triangle between a very British kind of femme fatale and the two very different men in her lives. Seen today it's a slow and dated affair, quite genteel at times, although it picks up a little in the second half with some more atmospheric and darker elements that make it worthwhile at times. The film flirts with the noir genre at times but other than a handful of scenes is quite routine. It does boast the likes of Thora Hird and Harry Fowler in smaller supporting roles, as well as a very good Sydney Tafler playing a real bad boy.