They Came to a City

Last updated

They Came to a City
"They Came to a City" (1945).jpg
Directed by Basil Dearden
Written by Basil Dearden
Sidney Cole
J.B. Priestley
Based on They Came to a City
by J.B. Priestley
Produced by Michael Balcon
Sidney Cole
Starring John Clements
Googie Withers
Raymond Huntley
Renee Gadd
Cinematography Stanley Pavey
Edited by Michael Truman
Music by Ernest Irving
Production
company
Distributed by Ealing Distribution
Release date
  • August 1944 (1944-08)
Running time
78 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

They Came to a City is a 1944 British black-and-white film directed by Basil Dearden and starring John Clements, Googie Withers, Raymond Huntley, Renee Gadd and A. E. Matthews. [1] It was adapted from the 1943 play of the same title by J. B. Priestley, and is notable for including a cameo appearance by Priestley as himself.

Contents

The plot concerns the experiences of various people who have come to live in their "ideal" city, and explores their hopes and reasons for doing so. Many of the cast had also performed their roles in the original West End stage production. The film's art direction was by Michael Relph. [2] [3]

Plot

The story is framed as a tale told to a young couple by a stranger walking in a field overlooking a small British industrial city during WWII. The unnamed stranger is played by J.B. Priestley; his story is framed as a parable as to how people might live after the war, if they were presented with the opportunity to live in a utopia.

The story: Nine people from different walks of life and class are brought by unknown means to a mysterious, modernistic and empty castle-like structure. The nine people are Sir George Gedney, a misanthropic aristocrat; Malcolm Stritton, a bank clerk who is dissatisfied with the current political system; Dorothy Stritton, Malcolm's domineering and jealous wife; Alice Foster, an unhappy waitress; Mr. Cudworth, a money-obsessed businessman; needy Lady Loxfield and her compliant daughter Philippa; cynical, free-thinking seaman Joe Dinmore; and Mrs. Batley, a practical charwoman.

The nine interact -- not always agreeably -- and after a time, they discover the castle overlooks a city, and a door opens to allow them to access it. We never see the city, but the nine return to the castle and discuss what they've experienced. Some see the city (which is implied to run on socialistic principles) as a utopian society, others as something they would never want to live in. Before sundown, each of the nine must make a permanent decision whether to stay and live in the city (and never return to their original homes), or to leave the city forever.

Cast

uncredited:

Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Direction, acting and photography are all excellent, but the film is not true cinema as it is practically all talk and no action. Though the film is welcome in that it has a worthwhile motive, it gives little help as to how Utopia is to be achieved, apart from that most difficult of all things, universal friendship." [4]

Kine Weekly wrote: "Intelligently and artistically presented, competently acted and, within its bounds, elaborately staged, it is, nevertheless, no paltry pictorial pamphleteering. ...The tale cross-sections humanity effectively, but by leaving everything to talk – the workings of the brave new halcyon administration, which roughly repudiates what the author bitingly describes as 'the dogfight round a dustbin" life followed by most societies, are never witnessed – and displaying obvious political bias, it becomes a task rather than a diversion. J. B. Priestley tells the story, re-winds it in the middle and figures prominently at the fadeout, but the personal touch, at once both agreeable and formidable, fails adequately to compensate for its lack of movement." [5]

In The New York Times, Bosley Crowther wrote, "as symbolism and an outlet for Priestley's philosophy, They Came to a City is eloquent and courageous, but as a motion picture it is immobile." [6]

In British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 David Quinlan rated the film as "average", writing: "Uncinematic conversion of play; not box-office either." [7]

Leslie Halliwell said: "Good talk and good acting, but not quite cinema." [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Googie Withers</span> British actress and entertainer (1917–2011)

Georgette Lizette "Googie" Withers, CBE, AO was an English entertainer. She was a dancer and actress, with a lengthy career spanning some nine decades in theatre, film, and television. She was a well-known actress and star of British films during and after the Second World War.

<i>Dead of Night</i> 1945 British film

Dead of Night is a 1945 black and white British anthology supernatural horror film, made by Ealing Studios. The individual segments were directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. It stars Mervyn Johns, Googie Withers, Sally Ann Howes and Michael Redgrave. The film is best remembered for the concluding story featuring Redgrave and an insane ventriloquist's malevolent dummy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raymond Huntley</span> English actor (1904–1990)

Horace Raymond Huntley was an English actor who appeared in dozens of British films from the 1930s to the 1970s. He also appeared in the ITV period drama Upstairs, Downstairs as the pragmatic family solicitor Sir Geoffrey Dillon.

<i>Hell Is a City</i> 1960 British film by Val Guest

Hell Is a City is a 1960 British crime thriller film starring Stanley Baker, based on the 1954 novel of the same title by Maurice Procter.

<i>Time and the Conways</i> Play by J. B. Priestley

Time and the Conways is a British play written by J. B. Priestley in 1937 illustrating J. W. Dunne's Theory of Time through the experience of a moneyed Yorkshire family, the Conways, over a period of nineteen years from 1919 to 1937. Widely regarded as one of the best of Priestley's Time Plays, a series of pieces for theatre which played with different concepts of Time, it continues to be revived in the UK regularly.

<i>The Gentle Sex</i> 1943 British film by Leslie Howard

The Gentle Sex is a 1943 British black-and-white romantic comedy-drama war film, directed by Leslie Howard and Maurice Elvey and narrated by Howard. It was produced by Concanen Productions, Two Cities Films, and Derrick de Marney. It was Howard's last film before his death.

<i>Our Girl Friday</i> 1953 British film

Our Girl Friday is a 1953 British comedy film starring Joan Collins, George Cole, Kenneth More and Robertson Hare. It is about a woman who is shipwrecked with three men on a deserted island.

<i>The Queen of Spades</i> (1949 film) 1949 British film by Thorold Dickinson

The Queen of Spades is a 1949 British fantasy-horror film directed by Thorold Dickinson and starring Anton Walbrook, Edith Evans and Yvonne Mitchell. It is based on the 1834 short story of the same name by Alexander Pushkin.

<i>Broken Journey</i> 1948 British film by Ken Annakin

Broken Journey is a 1948 British drama film directed by Ken Annakin and featuring Phyllis Calvert, James Donald, Margot Grahame, Raymond Huntley and Guy Rolfe. Passengers and crew strugge to survive after their airliner crashes on top of a mountain; based on a true-life accident in the Swiss Alps.

<i>White Corridors</i> 1951 British film by Pat Jackson

White Corridors is a 1951 British drama film directed by Pat Jackson and starring Googie Withers, Godfrey Tearle, James Donald and Petula Clark. It is based on the 1944 novel Yeoman's Hospital by Helen Ashton.

<i>Home at Seven</i> (film) 1952 British film

Home at Seven is a 1952 British mystery drama film directed by and starring Ralph Richardson, featuring Margaret Leighton, Jack Hawkins, Campbell Singer and Michael Shepley. It is based on the 1950 play Home at Seven by R. C. Sherriff. The film is Richardson's only work as director. Guy Hamilton was assistant director.

<i>Saloon Bar</i> 1940 British film by Walter Forde

Saloon Bar is a 1940 British comedy thriller film directed by Walter Forde and starring Gordon Harker, Elizabeth Allan and Mervyn Johns. It was made by Ealing Studios and its style has led to comparisons with the later Ealing Comedies, unlike other wartime Ealing films which are different in tone. It is based on the 1939 play of the same name by Frank Harvey in which Harker had also starred. An amateur detective tries to clear an innocent man of a crime before the date of his execution.

<i>Stranger from Venus</i> 1954 British film by Burt Balaban

Stranger from Venus is a 1954 independently made UK second feature ('B') black-and-white science fiction film, directed by Burt Balaban and starring Patricia Neal, Helmut Dantine and Derek Bond. The screenplay was by Hans Jacoby from a story by Desmond Leslie. It was produced by Balaban and Gene Martel.

<i>Three Hats for Lisa</i> 1965 film by Sidney Hayers

Three Hats for Lisa a.k.a. One Day in London is a 1965 British musical comedy film directed by Sidney Hayers and starring Joe Brown, Sid James, Sophie Hardy, Una Stubbs and Dave Nelson.

<i>The Man in the Mirror</i> (1936 film) 1936 British film by Maurice Elvey

The Man in the Mirror is a 1936 British comedy film, directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Edward Everett Horton, Genevieve Tobin and Ursula Jeans.

Renee Gertrude Gadd was an Argentine-born British film actress. She acted mostly in British films.

<i>Strange Boarders</i> 1938 film

Strange Boarders is a 1938 British comedy thriller film, directed by Herbert Mason, produced by Edward Black and written by Sidney Gilliat and A. R. Rawlinson. It stars Tom Walls, Renée Saint-Cyr, Googie Withers and Ronald Adam. The film is an adaptation of the 1934 espionage novel The Strange Boarders of Palace Crescent by E. Phillips Oppenheim, and was well received by critics. It was produced by Gainsborough Pictures and distributed by General Film Distributors.

<i>The Gangs All Here</i> (1939 film) 1939 British film

The Gang's All Here is a 1939 British black-and-white comedy-mystery, directed by Thornton Freeland and starring Jack Buchanan and Googie Withers. It was produced by Associated British Picture Corporation and released in the U.S. in 1943 as The Amazing Mr. Forrest.

<i>The Diamond</i> (film) 1954 British film by Montgomery Tully

The Diamond is a 1954 British film noir crime film directed by Montgomery Tully, and starring Dennis O'Keefe, Margaret Sheridan and Philip Friend. It is based on the 1952 novel Rich Is the Treasure by Maurice Procter. It was released by United Artists in Britain and in America, where it was known as The Diamond Wizard.

They Came to a City is a 1943 play by the British writer J.B. Priestley.

References

  1. ↑ "They Came to a City". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 18 February 2024.
  2. ↑ "They Came to a City". 5 February 1945. Retrieved 30 March 2017– via IMDb.
  3. ↑ "They Came to a City (1945)". Archived from the original on 13 July 2012. Retrieved 30 March 2017.
  4. ↑ "They Came to a City". The Monthly Film Bulletin . 11 (121): 100. 1 January 1944 – via ProQuest.
  5. ↑ "They Came to a City". Kine Weekly . 330 (1949): 26. 24 August 1944 – via ProQuest.
  6. ↑ "THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; 'Here Come the Co-Eds,' Lively Burlesque, is Presented at the Criterion, With Abbott and Costello in Chief Roles 'They Came to a City,' Film Made From a Priestley Play Depicting Haman Problems, Appears at Little Carnegie". New York Times. Retrieved 30 March 2017.
  7. ↑ Quinlan, David (1984). British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd. p. 250. ISBN   0-7134-1874-5.
  8. ↑ Halliwell, Leslie (1989). Halliwell's Film Guide (7th ed.). London: Paladin. p. 1009. ISBN   0586088946.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.