Good Time Girl *** (1948, Jean Kent, Dennis Price, Flora Robson, Griffith Jones, Herbert Lom, Bonar Colleano, Diana Dors) – Classic Movie Review 6,978

The 1948 British noir thriller Good Time Girl stars Jean Kent as a slum slut who flees her young offenders’ prison, joins crooks, kills a copper drunk-driving, and joins American deserters on a robbery binge, leading to another death.

Director David MacDonald’s 1948 British film noir thriller Good Time Girl stars Jean Kent as a slum slut called Gwen Rawlings, who escapes from her young offenders’ prison, joins some crooks, kills a copper in a drunk-drive hit-and-run accident, and joins a couple of American army deserters who go on a robbery binge, leading to another death – this time of a cab driver.

Jean Kent, excellent co-stars and a very good support cast hurry the time along, but the epic plot wanders all over the place and the stock characters are not quite interesting enough fully to hold the attention all the time. Still, overall the film is engaging and entertaining.

Kent’s Gwen character has to take to the streets when she is down on her uppers. The moral of the movie is told in flashback by magistrate Miss Thorpe (Flora Robson) to young delinquent Lyla Lawrence (Diana Dors) to try to dissuade her from a similar fate.

Though it is adapted from a novel, it is supposedly based on a true case, the Cleft Chin Murder of 1944, but the film does not persuade you that its story is any way real at all. Still, Kent makes an admirable, first-rate wicked lady, and it is great to have her as the main star this time, and there is always that fine support cast to admire too.

The screenplay by Muriel Box, Sydney Box and Ted Willis is based on Arthur La Bern’s 1947 novel Night Darkens the Street.

Jean Kent makes an admirable, first-rate wicked lady in Good Time Girl (1948).

Also in the cast are Dennis Price, Griffith Jones, Herbert Lom, Bonar Colleano, Peter Glenville, George Carney, Beatrice Varley, Hugh McDermott, Amy Veness, Elwyn Brook-Jones, Orlando Martins, Renée Gadd, Jill Balcon, Joan Young, Margaret Barton, Jack Raine, Nora Swinburne, George Merritt, Michael Hordern, Garry Marsh, Dorothy Vernon, Vera Francis, June Byford, John Blythe, Edward Lexy, Danny Green, Noel Howlett, Zena Marshall, Jane Hylton, Rosalind Atkinson, Phyl French, Lionel Grose, Griffith Jones, Betty Nelson, and Ilena Sylva.

Good Time Girl is directed by David MacDonald, runs 93 minutes, is produced by Sydney Box Productions (as Triton) (UK) and Eagle-Lion Classics (US) and released by General Film Distributors, is written by Muriel Box, Sydney Box and Ted Willis, is shot in black and white by Stephen Dade, is produced by Sydney Box and Samuel Goldwyn Jr, is scored by Lambert Williamson and Clifton Parker, and is designed by Maurice Carter.

The film was originally known as Bad Girl, and was banned by the British censor for its provocative dialogue.

Diana Dors would soon memorably be playing her own star girl gone bad character in Yield To The Night [Blonde Sinner] (1956).

Arthur La Bern (1909–1990)

British crime writer Arthur La Bern made his name with the 1945 crime novel It Always Rains on Sunday.

Four of Arthur La Bern’s novels became films: It Always Rains on Sunday (1947); Good-Time Girl (1948), based on Night Darkens the Street; Paper Orchid (1949); and Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy (1972), based on Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square.

He also wrote several screenplays: Freedom to Die (1961), Dead Man’s Evidence (1962), Time to Remember (1962), Incident at Midnight (1963), Accidental Death (1963), and The Verdict (1964).

Cleft Chin Murder

The Cleft Chin Murder was part of a string of crimes during 1944, so called because the murder victim, taxi driver George Edward Heath, had a cleft chin. The culprits were Karl Hultén, a Swedish-born deserter from the US Army, and Elizabeth Jones, an 18 -year-old waitress.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6,978

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