Sparrows Can’t Sing **** (1963, James Booth, Barbara Windsor, Roy Kinnear) – Classic Movie Review 8595

Director Joan Littlewood brings her Theatre Royal Stratford East London stage hit to the screen with all its sparkle and enthusiasm intact in the 1963 British black and white kitchen sink comedy Sparrows Can’t Sing.

It is a thoroughly enjoyable slice of cockney life, set in Stepney, where sailor Charlie (James Booth) returns from two years at sea to find that his home has been demolished and that his wife (Barbara Windsor) has run off with married bus driver Bert (George Sewell) and has a new baby. Booth looks for Windsor, swearing revenge on Sewell.

Littlewood films in a freewheeling, attractive style, painting a vivid picture of changing East End life through the extensive location shooting in Limehouse, Isle of Dogs and Stepney around the theatre in Stratford,(though there is also studio filming at Merton Park Studios, Merton, London, England). The tone though is larky and knees-up, ignoring the pain of infidelity and social decay. But, perhaps best of all, it can be simply enjoyed for being full of famous British character actors, who thereafter spent their lives playing these loveable cockney stereotypes.

The screenplay by Stephen Lewis and Joan Littlewood is based on the play Sparrers Can’t Sing by Stephen Lewis, first performed at Theatre Royal Stratford East in 1960, using cast from Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop, who also appear in the film. The hit production transferred to London’s West End at Wyndham’s Theatre in 1961. The ensemble play was developed using improvisational theatre techniques during performance.

Also in the cast are Roy Kinnear, Avis Bunnage, George Sewell, Barbara Ferris, Murray Melvin, Arthur Mullard, Victor Spinetti, Brian Murphy, Griffith Davies, Peggy Ann Clifford, Wally Patch, Bob Grant, Stephen Lewis, Jenny Sontag, May Scagnelli, Fanny Carby, Yootha Joyce, Janet Howse, Queenie Watts, Harry H Corbett, Marjie Lawrence, Glynn Edwards and Gerry Raffles. It is the last film of Edie Martin.

Sparrows Can’t Sing, maybe, but Barbara Windsor can. She sings the title song written and composed by Lionel Bart. Windsor was nominated for a Best British Actress BAFTA Film Award for this film.

Subtitled American versions exist and it is supposedly the first English language film to be released in the US with subtitles.

Brian Murphy and Yootha Joyce later play husband and wife in the TV sitcoms Man About the House (1973) and George & Mildred (1976).

Nearby Vallance Road residents the Kray Twins turned up during filming to visit the sets and persuade local residents to co-operate with the filming. Pat Connolly, one of their bodyguards and club bouncers aka Big Pat, appears in a scene at the Flamingo Club.

The Earl of Snowdon attended the world premiere on 26 February 1963 at the ABC cinema on the Mile End Road, with after-film drinks across the road at the Kentucky Club, owned by the Kray twins, before the party moved on to another Kray establishment, Esmeralda’s Barn in the West End.

Sparrows Can’t Sing opened the next day at the Rialto Cinema in the West.

It was released on Warner Home Video in 1990 in the UK.

Sparrows Can’t Sing is directed by Joan Littlewood, runs 94 minutes, is made by Carthage Films and Associated British Picture Corporation, is distributed by Elstree Distributors (1963) (UK), Warner-Pathé Distributors (1963) (UK) and Janus Films (1963) (US), is written by Stephen Lewis and Joan Littlewood, based on the play Sparrers Can’t Sing by Stephen Lewis. is shot in black and white by Max Greene and Desmond Dickinson, is produced by Donald Taylor, is scored by James Stevens (original music) and Stanley Black (incidental music), and is designed by Bernard Sarron.

RIP beloved British actress, comedy icon and national treasure Barbara Windsor, who died of Alzheimer’s disease on 10 December 2020, aged 83. She appeared in nine Carry On films, most memorably in Carry On Camping.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8595

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