A Place to Go

1963
A Place to Go
6.5| 1h26m| en| More Info
Released: 01 July 1963 Released
Producted By: British Lion Films
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

Set in contemporary Bethnal Green in east London, A Place to Go charts the dramatic changes that were happening in the lives of the British working-class at the time.

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ianlouisiana Mike Sarne?Didn't he "direct" "Myra Breckinridge"?Yes by golly he did The boy done good then...I suppose. Although I'm not sure what he did afterwards except nearly bankrupt the studio. Actor,pop star,here was a young man for his time although both his vocal and thespic skills may have been open to question by some less - than - kind commentators. In "A place to go" he plays a disaffected youth (what else?) who attempts to turn to crime but doesn't have the bottle. An embarrassed - looking Bernard Lee plays Cockney Rebel Dad who does an excruciatingly incompetent escapologist's act(reminds me of one I saw "entertaining" the crowds waiting for Winston Churchill's funeral cortege to pass Tower Hill a couple of years later - I had to look twice to make sure it wasn't the same geezer). Mum is Doris Hare who isn't the slightest bit embarrassed but should have been. Rita Tushingham is not convincing as a cockney sparrer - Princess Margaret could have done a better job. It would like to have been "It always rains on Sundays" with its dour but somehow rivetting look at working - class life in Bethnal Green but it lacks almost everything except John Slater. It's patronising,opportunistic and cliched. Just like "Eastenders" then. And just about as realistic.
writers_reign In the immortal words of Syd Field, What A Performance, and that's only Mike, Come Outside, Sarne, what a pity he didn't take himself outside before filming started, but fair dos, you could say the same about virtually anyone involved. Doris Hare? You've got to be kidding. On The Buses was just about her mark and even that dire piece of cheese makes this look like Citizen Kane. As someone remarked on this site Rita Tushingham is the best actress here by a country mile but Rita Tushingham as a cockney sparrer, do me a favour. Bernard Lee, poster boy for the Temperance Society, Doris Hare, and Mike Sarne in the same family? Who was the Casting Director, Mr. Bean? Do yourself a favour and give this one a miss.
Leofwine_draca A PLACE TO GO is an odd little blend of the classic British kitchen sink social drama and the more old-fashioned crime thriller that was popular a decade before and still doing the rounds even in the early 1960s, although this is very much a last-gasp attempt with the burgeoning popularity of the spy genre soon wiping away the trend for safe cracking and night time robberies.It works better as a kitchen sink film than a crime thriller, because the heist itself, although the best part of the movie, is dealt with very hurriedly and doesn't take up much of the running time. Instead the viewer is treated to a slice-of-life drama involving a poor working class family presided over by Bernard Lee, cast against type as a street performer with a Houdini-style breaking chain act! Pop star Michael Sarne is the idealistic hero seeking to escape from his drab existence. He hooks up with the inimitable Rita Tushingham, who proves to be more than a match for his wiles as her character is full of life and rather independent. She's the best actor in the whole thing, certainly showing up Sarne as a rather bland leading man (at least we get the likes of John Slater and Roy Kinnear who are rather more fun in delivering mannered supporting characters). The feisty romance scenes are rather well handled, although the pacing is a little slow and the crime elements feel rather unnecessary and tacked on to the story. Still, it's a perfectly watchable film for lovers of the era.
davidcorne245 After reading the first review of this film I was tempted to say that the reviewer should have gone to Specsavers. Talking about 'the lovely Rita Tushingham' made me think this. She may have been a good actress, but lovely she certainly wasn't. Mike Sarne used this film as a vehicle to prove that not only he couldn't sing, but couldn't act either. The one saving grace for me as someone who worked in Bethnal Green around this time the film was made was the jogging of my memory of streets, neighbourhood and people long gone. The sight of Doris Hare belittling Bernard Lee at the family meal table was as embarrassing as the bedroom clinch they later shared. The scene where Lee sets light to the Christmas decorations is just laughable and how Sarne and Tushingham spent time canoodling in a derelict bombed out building probably running alive with rats was as ridiculous as casting John Slater as the local gangster. Like Lee who played an escapologist (not a very good one at that)who struggled to free himself of the chains he was bound by, I couldn't get out of the cinema quick enough!