While Max Bygraves is naturally best remembered as a variety entertainer, the films he made at the height of his fame in the 1950s deserve closer attention. They provide connections between postwar dramas such as Brighton Rock (1947) and Cosh Boy (1953) and the more celebrated kitchen-sink realism that followed the critical and commercial success of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960).
A Cry from the Streets (1958) is a sentimental but revealing social drama about unwanted kids and state children's homes. Spare the Rod (1961) has Bygraves as a liberal teacher questioning the treatment Donald Pleasence's brutish headmaster hands out to working-class pupils. In both of these, Bygraves lends his easygoing "man of the people" persona to confront unpleasant social realities – extraordinary for a "family entertainer" in any period, but in the 1950s, a brave and individual one.
Perhaps even more remarkably, in Charley Moon (1956) Bygraves portrays a performer much like himself, touring...
A Cry from the Streets (1958) is a sentimental but revealing social drama about unwanted kids and state children's homes. Spare the Rod (1961) has Bygraves as a liberal teacher questioning the treatment Donald Pleasence's brutish headmaster hands out to working-class pupils. In both of these, Bygraves lends his easygoing "man of the people" persona to confront unpleasant social realities – extraordinary for a "family entertainer" in any period, but in the 1950s, a brave and individual one.
Perhaps even more remarkably, in Charley Moon (1956) Bygraves portrays a performer much like himself, touring...
- 9/28/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
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