No Trees in the Street – 1959 | 96 mins | Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

No Trees in the Street was screenwriter Ted Willis’ ludicrously sentimental adaptation of his own play. Released just as British cinema entered its great ‘kitchen sink’ phase with Room at the Top (1958), this unconvincing study of life in a London slum and the inhabitants’ battle for survival against the environment could never feel anything but stale. Sylvia Syms produces a sensitive and poignant performance whilst Herbert Lom tries to inject a little menace as a small-time crook.

Told in flashback, the film returns to pre-war Kennedy Street in London. Fiery tearaway Tommy (Melvyn Hayes) talks big and dreams of a life of crime as a route out of the slums and poverty. Tommy’s naive mother, Jess (Joan Miller), foolishly sends her son to work for local hoodlum Wilkie (Herbert Lom), who quickly grooms the boy for life in the underworld by employing him as a driver. Wilkie is romantically interested in Tommy’s earnest sister, Hetty (Sylvia Syms), but refuses her pleas not to involve her brother in crime. On his first solo job, Tommy robs a lorry driver and decides to keep the cash for himself.

Tommy eventually returns home flaunting his money, and when confronted by Wilkie and his family, pulls a gun on them. When Hetty threatens to leave home, her morally bankrupt mother gets the girl drunk and leaves her inebriated daughter to be seduced by Wilkie. Local policeman, Det Sgt Frank Colllins (Ronald Howard), believes there is some good in Hetty and attempts to convince her to help Tommy – but Wilkie arrives to humiliate her. Meanwhile, Tommy murders a storekeeper and he returns home to his mother and sister. Shortly the police have their home surrounded.