This film is strange and fun, but I dun know why
the film feels like it was written in one sitting!
shareAre you watching it on Film4 today? (I am.)
Things that stick out - the middle class accent of the boy that others have mentioned - if you listen to his mother, she's not an Eastender either, it strikes me that they might be a family down on their luck. (Although most child actors then DID sound like that, whatever they were in - as do many of the rest of the cast, particularly the women.) He's pretty insufferable by today's standards, wouldn't last long in the playground these days, lol.
Diana Dors - what a good, overlooked actress she was, and how gorgeous too.
The East End in the early 50s - do me a favour. The late 40s/early 50s was the famous 'colourless' era, where everyone was just getting themselves together after the War - yes I'm sure there were markets like that, but not brimming with colour and music like this - we have to allow for artistic licence, I suppose! I lived in the East End in the mid-70s and parts of it still had the little Jewish shops and so on, but they must all have gone now (and the Jews with them I should imagine, seeing as the whole area must be pretty much wholly Pakistani and Bangadeshi by now).
Despite all that, this is still lovely to watch as a period piece.
Why do you think the markets were not like that?
I visited the same market in 1958 as a 6 year old. I remember it very colourful , noisy, no PC Police, minimum hygeine, but an interesting place to be.
noise, dirt, 'characters' ,Buskers, some not much different than the ones in the film. It was a srange and exciting place.
I agree with you, that was real, you could see that, not sure why the guy believed it was not
shareI think this film has what poncey literary types would now call "magic realism" !
It's a pretty curious mixture, but as it's obviously supposed to be a fantasy - so what ? The clue to this film is in the name of the writer. This is clearly a Central European Jewish fable, but transplanted to London.
Yes, there certainly were Jewish people on street markets in London in the Fifties, but I doubt that Londoners of the time recognised themselves when they went to see this film. It's a fantasy, that takes you AWAY from the real world !