EMERGENCY CALL

UK, 1952, 90 minutes, Black and white.
Jack Warner, Anthony Steel, Joy Shelton, Sid James, Freddie Mills, Earl Cameron, Thora Hird, Eric Pohlmann, Sydney Tafler.
Directed by Lewis Gilbert.

Emergency Call now seems like any episode of a popular television show like Casualty. However, at the beginning of the 1950s, it offered a sense of realism about life in London.

It was directed by Lewis Gilbert who had a long career including some of the James Bond films as well as Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine.

The film was a star vehicle for Jack Warner, a stalwart of British film, radio and television. He had appeared in the groundbreaking The Blue Lamp. Anthony Steel was a popular star of the period in such films as The Wooden Horse and Where No Vultures Fly. Freddie Mills, former light heavyweight champion of the world, also appears. The rest of the cast is built up by British stalwarts such as Sid James and Thora Hird.

The film is interesting in terms of the search for a particular blood type, the range of drama coming from the various people who could possibly supply the blood and their reasons for and against giving it – including a murderer on the run.

1.The popularity of this kind of human interest film? Hospitals? The police? Patients? Crisis and the time limit?

2.Black and white photography, London, realism? The variety of locations, hospital, the police, homes? Musical score?

3.The film in the careers of the director and the stars? Popular British film-making in the early 1950s?

4.The situation with Mrs Bishop and her daughter, the illness, the treatment in the hospital, the need for the particular type of blood? Mrs Bishop and her vigil, hopes, disappointments? The young girl, not realising her fight for life?

5.Doctor Carter, pleasant, efficient, reassuring? His search for the blood? With Inspector Lane? The various contacts, his memories of his student days, tracking down the landlady, hoping to find the donor, opening up the dangers of the criminal world? His ability to bring the operation to a successful completion?

6.The variety of people? George Robinson, his family in Liverpool, the sailor, black? His being unwilling to give the blood? His memories of World War Two and prejudice against his giving blood because he was black? On the ship, his wife, the captain, his finally being persuaded?

7.The elderly man whose wife was dead, the servant, the disappointment to find that he was imagining his wife alive?

8.The tracking down of the boxer, Sid James as his manager, the money deals, Tim Mahony, his decency, the fight, his choices, his giving the blood?

9.The criminal, his quiet life, the memories of the murder, his blood, the testing? Brett and his wife, the hold over the killer, his evading the police, coming to Brett, Brett hiding him, the intention of killing him? The police pursuit? His being trapped, his decision to give the blood – even though he was dying?

10.The gallery of ordinary characters? The hospital and its staff? The police? Satisfying old-fashioned entertainment?