Good Time Girl *** (1948, Jean Kent, Dennis Price, Flora Robson, Griffith Jones, Herbert Lom, Bonar Colleano, Diana Dors) – Classic Movie Review 6978

Director David MacDonald’s 1948 British noir thriller Good Time Girl stars Jean Kent as a slum slut called Gwen Rawlings, who escapes from her young offenders’ prison, joins some crooks, kills a copper in a drunk-drive hit-and-run accident, and joins a couple of American deserters who go on a robbery binge, leading to another death – this time of a cab driver.

A very good support cast hurries the time along, but the epic plot wanders all over the place and the stock characters are not quite interesting enough fully to hold the attention all the time. Kent’s Gwen character has to take to the streets when she is down on her uppers. The moral of the movie is told in flashback by magistrate Miss Thorpe (Flora Robson) to young delinquent Lyla Lawrence (Diana Dors) to try to dissuade her from a similar fate.

Though it is adapted from a novel, it is supposedly based on a true case, but the film does not persuade you that its story is any way real at all. Still, Kent makes an admirable, first-rate wicked lady, and it is great to have her as the main star this time, and there is always that fine support cast to admire too.

The screenplay by Muriel Box, Sydney Box and Ted Willis is based on Arthur La Bern’s novel Night Darkens the Street.

Jean Kent makes an admirable, first-rate wicked lady in Good Time Girl (1948).

Also in the cast are Dennis Price, Griffith Jones, Herbert Lom, Bonar Colleano, Peter Glenville, George Carney, Beatrice Varley, Hugh McDermott, Amy Veness, Elwyn Brook-Jones, Orlando Martins, Renée Gadd, Jill Balcon, Joan Young, Margaret Barton, Jack Raine, Nora Swinburne, George Merritt, Michael Hordern, Garry Marsh, Dorothy Vernon, Vera Francis, June Byford, John Blythe, Edward Lexy, Danny Green, Noel Howlett, Zena Marshall, Jane Hylton, Rosalind Atkinson, Phyl French, Lionel Grose, Griffith Jones, Betty Nelson and Ilena Sylva.

Good Time Girl is directed by David MacDonald, runs 93 minutes, is produced by Sydney Box Productions (as Triton) (UK) and Eagle-Lion Classics (US) and released by General Film Distributors, is written by Muriel Box, Sydney Box and Ted Willis, is shot in black and white by Stephen Dade, is produced by Sydney Box and Samuel Goldwyn Jr, is scored by Lambert Williamson and Clifton Parker, and designed by Maurice Carter.

The film was originally known as Bad Girl, and was banned by the British censor for its provocative dialogue.

Diana Dors would soon memorably be playing her own star girl gone bad character in Yield To The Night [Blonde Sinner] (1956).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6978

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