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nightwatcher
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Hue and Cry (1947)
21. Mar 2018 at 20:25
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There's a bit of a mystery with this one!

"Hue and Cry was among the first British comedies after the war, and is generally considered the first of what are now remembered as the 'Ealing comedies'.  The story of a group of East End kids who foil a gang of robbers who are using a children's comic to communicate their plans, the film borrows something of its premise from the popular children's story Emil and the Detectives (first filmed in Germany in 1931). 

While the story has an appealing Boy's Own quality, perhaps the film's most distinctive feature is its use of bombed-out locations in London's East End and Docklands. These rubble-strewn sites become the background for one grand boy's adventure (the children include only one girl - who is just about tolerated by the others), culminating in the film's best known image, in which hundreds of boys from all over London converge on a handful of unfortunate petty criminals. In keeping with Ealing's tendency in the last years of the war to foster inclusive images of British society, the children are mostly working-class, and include a young Scottish boy, Alec."

Douglass Barr, actor who plays Alec is listed as being born in 1930, which would make him 17 when the movie came out, but he's clearly a preteen boy. The others also appear younger than their birthdates would indicate. I am thinking that either the movie was filmed earlier than '47, at least one birthdate is incorrect, or some combination of the two. Some screencaps from the web:

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diogenes
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Re: Hue and Cry (1947)
Reply #1 - 22. Mar 2018 at 00:40
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I don't know when "Hue and Cry" was filmed, but...  the film was released very early in '47 (February), and Douglas' birthday was very late in 1930 (November), so assuming the filming was done before November '46, he would actually have been 15. Could Douglas have been 15 in "Hue and Cry"? (i) puberty struck rather later in those days than it tends to now (Peter Gamble in his autobiography The More We Are Together describes how during the war he was consigned to work in the mines where the pits "abounded in 14-year-olds" whose "shrill trebles" [p. 188] indicated that they had yet to hit puberty...). (ii) Douglas might just have been a very young-looking (and very short) actor. Some people just never seem to grow up. Bearing these points in mind, my guess would be that his reported birthdate is accurate. I would have to take another look at the film again, though, to see if this seems credible.
« Last Edit: 22. Mar 2018 at 12:34 by diogenes »  
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Re: Hue and Cry (1947)
Reply #2 - 22. Mar 2018 at 11:38
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UPDATE:

Here's a link to an article where Barr confirms that he was 15 during the filming of "Hue and Cry":

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nightwatcher
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Re: Hue and Cry (1947)
Reply #3 - 22. Mar 2018 at 17:37
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Great sleuthing! Wow, that is a young-looking 15, even for the time. Any chance of identifying the other younger boy up front in the first photo? I should probably rewatch this one, it's been a while.
  
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Re: Hue and Cry (1947)
Reply #4 - 23. Mar 2018 at 15:47
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I took a quick look through the scenes where he appears, but I couldn't catch anyone referring to his character by name, unfortunately, so I can't identify the actor. One can easily identify him in the film because he always wears the same clothes - a tanktop jumper over a short sleeved shirt with collar (and he's always in shorts). He appears about 15 1/2 minutes in, as the boy making sounds of explosions and bombings in a way that is both mesmerising and indescribably wonderful.

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We see him in the finale emerging from the London rubble...

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I'd like to identify him too - so if anyone can help, I'd be most grateful.  Smiley
  
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