LAW AND DISORDER
UK, 1959, 76 minutes, Black and white.
Michael Redgrave, Robert Morley, Joan Hickson, Lionel Jeffries, Ronald Squire, Elizabeth Sellars, John le Mesurier, George Coulouris, Meredith Edwards, Reginald Beckwith.
Directed by Charles Crichton (and Henry Cornelius).
Law and Disorder comes at the end of the 1950s, a golden age for British comedy, especially at Ealing Studios. The people responsible for Law and Disorder included T.E.B. Clarke who wrote so many of the Ealing Studios films including Hue and Cry, Passport to Pimlico, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Titfield Thunderbolt. It was directed by Charles Crichton who also directed a number of these films including The Lavender Hill Mob. However, the film was begun by Henry Cornelius who had directed Genevieve and I Am a Camera. Crichton took over after Cornelius’s death.
The film is a star vehicle for Michael Redgrave, better known for serious roles, but enjoyably comic here. Robert Morley is a pompous judge, Joan Hickson is her usual self as Aunt Florence and Lionel Jeffries is his usual as a major.
The film is short in running time – but a very good and typical British comedy.
1. The quality of this British comedy and the fifties style and humour?
2. Black and white photography, London and country settings? Authentic atmosphere for British comedy?
3. The humour of the build up of Percy, the dates of his career, his jail sentences, his incorrigible nature, the purpose for his swindling the money? The religious irony in his missionary journeyings and his becoming a bishop?
4. Florence and her looking after Colin, the humour of Percy’s attacking her for card cheating? Her character, dishonesty, humour?
5. The importance of Colin growing up, his reputation and career, his assisting the judge, not knowing his father’s career?
6. The humour in Robert Morley’s performance as the judge? British justice and its exaggeration, pomposity, what did he learn ultimately?
7. The gallery of assorted crooks, their working combination? The London crooks with their personalities, the Major and his temptation of Percy, the various contacts?
8. The character of Percy? Michael Redgraves’s style? The honest looking crook? His retirement, the temptation to smuggle, his skill in smuggling?
9. The build-up of suspense in the presentation and the assize courts, hearing the cases, the humour of the case about the parrot, the judge and Colin Watkin and the frame up for smuggling? The reason for the judge’s change of attitude?
10. The British background of smuggling, the satire on the police and their administration of the rules as regards hotels etc., smugglers? The man who lost his case and wanted to shoot the judge as a robber? The insight into these various British types?
11. The importance for delaying the case, the devices?
12. How appropriate was the happy ending? The conversation between Percy and the judge? The judges's not letting Colin be present?
13. The themes of honesty and dishonesty, justice, the irony of the title, the all pervading British humanity within their comedies?
