Emergency Call (1953)

Fantastic!

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

EMERGENCY CALL is a film that takes an old premise, involving a sick and ailing child who desperately needs to be saved by a transfusion of rare blood, and uses it as a basis for a film which explores working class life in London in the early 1950s. It's an intriguing little portrait of its time, depicting a bygone era populated by racial tension, corrupt boxing promoters, and criminals desperately trying to cover up their past crimes. The film is episodic in nature and hampered by the constraints of a low budget, but not without interest for fans of the genre.The cast includes Jack Warner (TV's DIXON OF DOCK GREEN) playing, you guessed, a policeman, and real-life boxing champ Freddie Mills playing, well, a boxer. There are also roles for those who would achieve later fame, including Thora Hird and Sid James. The film shrugs off the social commentary about two thirds of the way in, ending up as a police procedural thriller with an effective climax. Not great, but there's still plenty of interest here.

Portmanteau story regarding plight of a critically ill child, stricken with Leukaemia. She has but days to live, she needs a blood transfusion for 3 pints of blood, but needs this within days or she will die. The race is on to find suitable donors - complicated by her extremely rare blood group.The caring doctor teams up with a wily Scotland Yard detective, and they meet various sections of society in the hunt for their men.Notable for an appearance by former World Light-Heavyweight Boxing Champion - Freddie Mills.A stock black and white "B-movie", with some interesting twists and turns before we reach the climax.

Archetypal film that shows post war Britain as it is understood by those of us who grew up with Dixon of Dock Green, Freddie Mills, Sydney Tafler and Sid James writing our scripts. Wonderful stuff with a conclusion we know will be solved just before the film ends, so we can all go to bed knowing that all is right with the world and we are being protected by our new NHS and police force who do no wrong.Such a shame we learnt the truth by the eighties by which time we had grown up and discovered how complex the world really is, but oh how we can recall the kindly usherette showing us to our seats in a darkened cinema as we all felt part of the same Britain for just an hour and a half before the new Queen was crowned. Wonderful evocative stuff or a load of old clap trap depending on your take on the world?

Competent if slightly stodgy (and now rather dated) British B-movie. The plot centres around a child critically ill in hospital who needs a blood transfusion to save her life. Unfortunately she has a rare blood group, so Scotland yard are called in to track down possible donors. This is used as a framework for a collection of little stories about life in London ca 1950 rather in the style of "The Blue Lamp". Jack Warner and Sid James as a boxing manager (who could be a decent character actor when he tried) do a reasonable job at keeping the plot afloat. Now mainly of interest as a social document.