Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945)

★ 6.0 1h 29m IMDb

Drama Thriller Crime

Melodrama set in Victorian Brighton. Scheming pub landlady uses the timorous son of a domineering pharmacist to assist in the poisoning of her drunkard husband. (The title is from the way pharmacists used to wrap parcels containing poison).

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Cast

Mervyn Johns as Edward Sutton Died 1992 · Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK Father of actress Glynis Johns, who appeared with him in The Halfway House (1944) and The Sundowners (1960). Stocky, benevolent-looking Welsh character who became an unexpected star of British movies...

Googie Withers as Pearl Bond Died 2011 · Karachi, British India Georgette Lizette "Googie" Withers CBE, AO was a British entertainer who had a lengthy career in theatre, film, and television..

Gordon Jackson as David Sutton Died 1990 · Glasgow, Scotland From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Gordon Cameron Jackson, OBE (19 December 1923 – 15 January 1990) was a Scottish Emmy Award-winning actor best remembered for his roles as the butler Angus Hudso...

Garry Marsh as Joe Bond Died 1981 · Saint Margarets, Middlesex, England, UK

Sally Ann Howes as Peggy Sutton Died 2021 Sally Ann Howes (20 July 1930 – 19 December 2021) was an English actress and singer. Her career on stage, screen, and television spanned over six decades. She was best known for the role of Truly Scru...

Mary Merrall as Ellen Sutton Died 1976 · Liverpool, Lancashire, England, UK Mary Merrall ( born Elsie Lloyd; 5 January 1890 - 31 August 1973) was an English actress. She was known for Dead of Night (1945), The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1947) and Love on the Do...

Director Robert Hamer

Cast Mervyn Johns, Googie Withers, Gordon Jackson, Garry Marsh, Jean Ireland, Sally Ann Howes, Mary Merrall, Catherine Lacey, Frederick Piper, Colin Simpson

John Chard 7/10 Feb 17, 2019

Dastardly Doings At The Dolphin

Pink String and Sealing Wax is directed by Robert Hamer and adapted to screen by Diana Morgan from the play written by Roland Pertweee. It stars Mervyn Johns, Googie Withers, Gordon Jackson, Jean Ireland and Sally Ann Howes. Music is by Norman Demuth and cinematography by Stanley Pavey.

The wife of a pub landlord plots to rid herself of her abusive husband - roping in the innocent son of a chemist to achieve her aims.

One can sometimes forget that Ealing Studios was not solely about crafty comedies, it was a production house of many genre splinters. Here they dabble in the realm of the dark period piece, setting it in Victorian England down on the South Coast in Brighton. Essentially it's a straight forward plot line of a potential murderess and the big questions of if she does it and if so will she get away with it - more pertinently, will someone else be taking the fall?

Within this simple plotting though, there's a fascinating group of characters operating out of this part of Brighton - chiefly out of The Dolphin Public House and the local Pharmacy. There's class distinctions which grab the eyes and ears, but mostly it's the everyday actions of the main protagonists that hold court.

Johns (excellent) is the pharmacist and an almost tyrannical husband and father, his treatment of his family in the name of tough love is irritatingly troubling. It's no wonder his kin want to fly the nest in search of happiness. Pub landlord Joe Bond (Gary Marsh) is an abusive drunk, while his wife Pearl (Withers top draw) is a man chaser and as we know, a murderess in waiting.

The support characters are a mixed bunch of barfly gin guzzlers, jack the lads or wannabe singers who fill the air with a shrill din. All of which is cloaked roughly with a melodramatic bleakness that's initially slow to get off the ground, but comes to the fore for dramatic worth come the second period of the story.

This is far from being Hamer on his best form, he would be saving that for Kind Hearts and Coronets 4 years later, but with Withers good value, the period flavours strong and the photography suitably set at moody, this is well worth a peak for genre enthusiasts. 6.5/10