A drunken, abusive tavern-keeper's adulterous wife uses the backward son of a rigid, puritanical pharmacist who makes his entire family miserable.A drunken, abusive tavern-keeper's adulterous wife uses the backward son of a rigid, puritanical pharmacist who makes his entire family miserable.A drunken, abusive tavern-keeper's adulterous wife uses the backward son of a rigid, puritanical pharmacist who makes his entire family miserable.
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Did you know
- TriviaThe film is set in the English seaside town of Brighton in the 1880s. (Madame Adelina Patti's poster for her impending performance at the Brighton Pavilion gives a date of [Friday] May 7th 1880.)
- GoofsGordon Jackson as David Sutton, one of the elder children of five in the Sutton household, is the only one with a Scottish accent. It appears after the first few scenes.
- ConnectionsReferenced in Once More with Ealing (2019)
Featured review
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
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
helpful•130
- hitchcockthelegend
- Feb 16, 2019
- How long is Pink String and Sealing Wax?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Runtime1 hour 29 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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By what name was Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945) officially released in India in English?
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