Grab Your Umbrella — It Always Rains on Sunday (1947): The Rule, Brittania Blogathon

— The poster that sparked my interest.

I was fascinated with It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) long, long before I ever saw it. I came across a picture of the film’s poster on the Internet, was immediately drawn to it, and printed out a copy, where it decorated my work cubicle for several years. That was in the mid-2000s. I didn’t get a chance to see the film until three years ago.

And it was well worth the wait.

In a nutshell, the film – which takes place on a single rain-filled Sunday – centers on an escaped convict, Tommy Swann (John McCallum), who seeks refuge at the home of his ex-lover, Rose Sandigate (the always fabulous Googie Withers). As Rose endeavors to hide Tommy from the law and her family, we see the goings-on of numerous other characters, including a two-timing saxophone player, a small-time gangster. and a trio of ne’er do wells who recently robbed a warehouse (and only managed to snag a cache of kids’ roller skates).

— Sadie knows that her husband is no good.

The film does a masterful job weaving together the individual stories of these characters, with each one, in some way, touching another. And an appropriate sensation of noirish doom permeates the proceedings as we eavesdrop on the lives of London’s lower class. But for my money, the best thing about the movie is the women. They’re memorable, multifaceted, and utterly mesmerizing. There’s Vi Sandigate (Susan Shaw), the older of Rose’s two stepdaughters, who’s beautiful but flighty, and is carrying on an affair with Morry Hyams (Sydney Taffler), the very-married saxophone player. And Vi’s sweet-faced, sweet-dispositioned younger sister, Doris (Patricia Plunkett, in her big-screen debut), whose kind nature does not prevent her from speaking her mind or standing her ground when she needs to. And Morry’s wife, Sadie (Betty Ann Davies), who is completely aware of her spouse’s philandering ways, even telling him in one scene, “I know all about you and your little shiksas. I’ve known a long time, even if I haven’t said anything. But I’m not going to have them come here into my house.”  

But my favorite female in the cast and, indeed, the engine that drives the film, is Rose.

— Just another rainy Sunday.

We first encounter Rose near the start of the film, when she knocks on the wall of her stepdaughters’ room, — informing them that their father wants a cup of tea. We only hear her voice, so we don’t know who she is yet, or her relation to the girls’ father, or why she doesn’t get the tea herself. But we don’t have to wait long for a face-to-face meeting, and we join her as she goes through her morning routine – raising the shade to grudgingly greet the rainy day; making her way around the tiny bedroom that she shares with her husband, George (Edward Chapman); removing her pin curls from her dark hair as she half-listens to George share various tidbits from the newspaper. She doesn’t perk up, in fact, until her husband mentions the story of an escaped convict by the name of Thomas Swann. Although Rose curbs her initial reaction for George’s benefit, we instantly know that there’s more between her and Swann than meets the eye (and more than she wants George to know).

— Tommy and Rose: The salad days.

Through a flashback, we’re allowed a glimpse into Rose’s former life – when she sported a head full of brassy blond locks and worked as a barmaid in a local pub. We’re shown the day she first met the dashing Tommy Swann, and the day he proposed marriage, and the day she was packing her suitcase to leave for her wedding trip – only to learn that her betrothed had been arrested for robbery. It’s a little sad to see the difference between the vibrant, passionate Rose from years before, and the discontented Rose of today, living with two grown women, a boisterous adolescent, and a “decent” but rather dull husband in a cramped cracker box of a house where rain comes in through a broken window pane and the family takes baths in the kitchen next to the stove.

— Tommy awakens Rose’s passion.

Throughout the course of the day, Rose demonstrates time and again that she’s not only crafty and streetwise, but under pressure, she’s as cool as an October evening. There’s the scene where Doris arrives home early and Rose furtively drapes a towel over Tommy’s drying pants. Or when the police show up at her door and she offers that she wouldn’t be caught helping a “cheap crook like Tommy Swann.” During the policeman’s brief visit, Rose is informed that aiding an escaped criminal is punishable by up to two years – but she doesn’t let this stop her from continuing to hide Tommy in her home. Don’t be deceived, though; she’s no lovestruck fool. Rose never thinks of trying to run away with Tommy, or joining him later, if he safely makes it to his destination abroad. “It’s too late . . . ten years too late,” Rose tells Tommy with an expression tinged with regret. “Just send me a postcard, that’s all.”

— Rose is startled . . . at first.

Given Rose’s general feeling of restlessness, we’re not really surprised at her response when she discovers Tommy Swann hiding in her family’s storage shed. She’s startled, of course, when he clamps his hand over her mouth, but seconds after he releases her, she’s expressing concerns about his well-being: “You’re soaking!” she says. “You’ll catch your death of cold.” Rose obviously still cares about Tommy; he only wants some food, but she waits until her family clears out, sneaks him into the house, and insists that he take a nap in her bedroom while she dries his wet clothes. Again, we can’t help but feel for Rose – her relationship with Tommy was ended years before in the blink of an eye; his reappearance in her life not only serves to reignite her long-dormant passion, but it’s probably the most exciting thing that has happened in her life since he went to prison.

— Rose’s feelings haven’t changed.

Rose’s most poignant moment (and Withers’s most outstanding bit of acting) comes when Tommy tells her that he’s need of money and she first offers him the remainder of her housekeeping money. Tommy indicates that he can’t get far on this meager amount, so Rose retrieves from the back of a drawer the engagement ring Tommy gave her years before and gives it to him to pawn or sell. But when Tommy remarks that it’s a “nice stone” and says it should fetch a good price, Rose realizes that he doesn’t recognize it as the ring he gave her. The look in her eyes shifts from loving to sorrowful to no-nonsense acceptance in the matter of a few seconds, and when Tommy asks where she got it from, she responds simply, “Had it given.”

— Withers, McCallum, and their children.

Other stuff:

This film was the first major hit of the Ealing Studios in Britain, which is one of the oldest film studios in the world. It opened in 1905 and is still in operation today.

Googie Withers and John McCallum met on the set of It Always Rains on Sunday. They married the following year and remained together until McCallum’s death in 2010 at the age of 91.

In one scene, Rose sees scars on Tommy’s back from where he had been flogged with a cat-o-nine-tail whip while in prison. Flogging was a form of punishment used in British prisons dating back to the 19th century. It was banned in 1948, the year after this film was released.

Hermione Baddeley has a small part as the owner of a flophouse. You might remember her as Mrs. Naugatuck on TV’s Maude or the maid in Mary Poppins (1964).

You can catch It Only Rains on Sunday on YouTube, the Criterion Channel or BFI Player Classics. Check it out, y’all. You only owe it to yourself.

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This post is part of the 10th Annual Rule, Brittania Blogathon, hosted by Terence over at A Shroud of Thoughts. Click here to read the unique and interesting offerings that are part of this event.

~ by shadowsandsatin on September 22, 2023.