Every Day Except Christmas **** (1957, dir Lindsay Anderson) – Classic Movie Review 1410

‘Free Cinema’ documentary director Lindsay Anderson painstakingly, wittily and sympathetically records the daily life and hard-graft toil of workers in London’s glorious old Covent Garden fruit, vegetable and flower market.

Made in 1957, the 37-minute documentary  is a vibrant, bustling, characterful, and incredibly valuable record of a long-vanished world. It’ll be a shock to all the tourists today who enjoy this rich area as a shopping mall and pleasure dome, just as its present fate would stun Anderson, who sees the workers as heroes of his little drama. It’s photographed by distinguished cinematographer Walter Lassally.

‘All these roads leads to Covent Garden,’ says the narrator, dramatist Alun Owen, as the film opens with a montage of the market workers slowly beginning their night’s work that they do Every Day Except Christmas.

Every Day Except Christmas proved the vital stepping-stone for the director to move from TV to feature films. Produced by Karel Reisz and Leon Clore under the sponsorship of Ford of Britain, it was the first of the company’s Look at Britain series.

See also Terminus, directed by John Schlesinger. For another taste of the market, see Hitchcock’s Frenzy, made in 1972 just before the market relocated in 1974 to Nine Elms in Vauxhall, south London.

By the 18th century Covent Garden had become a red-light district and an Act of Parliament was drawn up to control the area. Charles Fowler’s neo-classical building was erected in 1830 to cover and organise the market and further buildings were added: the Floral Hall, Charter Market and in 1904 the Jubilee Market.

Anderson is best remembered for his Mick Travis trilogy that star Malcolm McDowell: If…. (1968), a satire on public schools; O Lucky Man! (1973), a Pilgrim’s Progress inspired road movie; and Britannia Hospital (1982).

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1410

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