An Inspector Calls **** (1954, Alastair Sim, Arthur Young, Olga Lindo, Brian Worth, Eileen Moore, Bryan Forbes, Jane Wenham) – Classic Movie Review 2792

Alastair Sim stars in director Guy Hamilton’s 1954 British film An Inspector Calls based on the play by J B Priestley and written for the screen by Desmond Davis.

As so often, an ideally cast Alastair Sim typically gives a tremendous, brio performance in a routine film, elevating it to memorable status. He plays the enigmatic Scotland Yard man Inspector Poole in a stagey film of the famous, excellent, thought-provoking J B Priestley theatre play, which is still regularly revived in British theatres.

The 1954 film that BBC Television happened to be showing by coincidence the August 19 night died in 1976 is perhaps as good a tribute to him as any, though The Green Man, The Belles of St Trinian’s and Scrooge (1951) immediately spring to mind as better candidates.

It’s 1912 and Sim’s Inspector Poole investigates the lives of five people who have forged a tragic chain of circumstances. He calls to interrupt an English family dinner party to show an upper crust Edwardian Yorkshire family in flashbacks that they all had a hand in the death in suspicious circumstances of a lower class young woman called Eva Smith (Jane Wenham).

Her death is linked to each family member of the upper class Birling family – Eileen Moore as Sheila Birling, Bryan Forbes as Eric Birling, Olga Lindo as Sybil Birling and Arthur Young as Arthur Birling – as well as Brian Worth as Gerald Croft.

Despite the uninspired direction by Guy Hamilton, plodding screenplay by Desmond Davis and general lack of flair in the stage-to-screen transfer, it is still a most entertaining, intelligent and involving film. The power and allure of Priestley’s play come through.

Also in the cast are Arthur Young, Olga Lindo, Brian Worth, Eileen Moore, Bryan Forbes, Pat Neal, Norman Bird, John Welsh, Barbara Everest, Jenny Jones, Amy Green, Catherine Wilmer, Olwen Brookes, Bill Raymond, Frances Gowens and George Woodbridge. Sim’s friend and protégé George Cole has an uncredited role as the Tram Conductor.

An Inspector Calls runs 80 minutes, is scored by Francis Chagrin and shot in black and white by Ted Scaife.

It is filmed at Shepperton Studios, Surrey, England, made by Watergate Productions, and distributed by British Lion Film Corporation and Associated Artists Productions.

The Inspector’s name was Inspector Goole in the original play. The play never shows Eva Smith, but the film starts with flashbacks showing each family’s member involvement in her life.

[Spoiler alert] Sim is simply playing a man calling himself Inspector Poole. For better or worse, the Inspector is more explicitly supernatural in the film than the play. This makes the film less subtle, less suspenseful and less surprising, but it still works. Sim makes the character creepy rather than enigmatic, and that works too.

Guy Hamilton (16 September 1922 – 20 April 2016) went on to direct three 007 movies, Goldfinger (1964), Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2792

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J B Priestley’s play is still regularly revived in British theatres: the 2016 London West End revival.