Innocent Sinners – 1958 | 95 mins | Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Gentle children’s drama based on the novel An Episode of Sparrows by Rumer Godden following a Cockney girl’s frustrated efforts to brighten her drab life by cultivating a bomb-site garden. Director Philip Leacock was an adept hand at capturing youthful emotions and had earlier done so on films including The Kidnapper’s (1953) and The Spanish Gardener (1955). Characteristically of the director, it’s a sensitive and agreeably acted drama that occasionally allows compassion to hinder realism.

Set in London during the period of post-war austerity. Neglected 13-year-old Lovejoy Mason (June Archer) lives with guardian parents whilst her mother Bertha (Vanda Godsell) treads the boards at the coastal holiday resorts. When Lovejoy comes into possession of a packet of cornflower seeds she decides to make something beautiful out of something ugly and creates a small garden in a bombed-out section of London. To tend her garden Lovejoy requires two-shillings for some garden tools and resorts to singing in the street – where she comes to the attention of terminally-ill resident Olivia Chesney (Flora Robson). Lovejoy eventually gets the required money by robbing the collection box at a nearby bomb-damaged Catholic church

A group of street urchins led by street-smart Tip Malone destroy Lovejoy’s garden and the young sparrow is forced to scour London in search of a new plot. Tip feels remorse for vandalising Lovejoy’s creation and offers to help her create a better garden in the grounds of the ruined Catholic church – providing she repays the money stolen from the collection box. Meanwhile, Lovejoy’s guardian’s, dreamer Mr Vincent (David Kossoff) and his wife Emma (Barbara Mullen), have troubles of their own with a restaurant that is failing and when news reaches them that Lovejoy’s mother has married and eloped to Canada the couple no longer have the funds to care of their young ward.

Lovejoy and Tip are arrested by the police for stealing from a communal garden, and together with her mother moving away, the unruly young teenager is taken into care and carted off to a charity home. The one sympathetic figure transpires to be golden-hearted spinster Olivia Chesney, who having overseen Lovejoy’s predicament, calls on her solicitor to draw up a trust fund to ensure both Lovejoy’s future and that of likeable restaurateurs the Vincent’s in a new West End premises. Sadly Mrs Chesney passes away before the fund can be finalised and it’s left in the hands of her stern sister Angela (Catherine Lacey) as to whether her dying wishes are implemented.