No Trees in the Street

Five years on from The Weak and The Wicked, J. Lee Thompson was back looking at British working-class life and criminality in No Trees in the Street, adapted by Ted Willis from his own stage play.

Using the backstory, copper Frank (Ronald Howard) on catching a very young David Hemmings up to no good, proceeds to tell the story of the area, as it was in the 1930s before the demolition and advent of the high-rises .

It’s a tale of desperate poverty and criminals who take advantage of that. Young people either desperate to get out or happy to join the criminal gangs, there being nothing else.

The focus is on Hetty (Sylvia Syms), her brother Tommy (Melvyn Hayes), and criminal gang leader Wilkie (Herbert Lom).

Ostensibly its fairly simple with Hetty wanting to get out, frustrated how her family (Stanley Holloway, Joan Miller) just happy to accept what they have, regardless of the effect on the family. For Tommy there’s the alure of crime: easy money, new suits, and connections. For Wilkie he’s the immigrant made good off his own back with little thought or care as to who he has trampled to get where he is.

However its more complex, as the manipulative, cowardly Miller urges Hetty to give in to Wilkie’s advances, thinking he’s a prize catch, and an easy way out of the slums for both.

Tommy is the no-hoper who sees crime as a way to survive, if not get out the slum. It’s the usual petty criminal that gets mixed up with the big boys and then trapped into an unescapable vortex of crime and violence.

Ticking away in the background is the narrating detective Frank, who fancies Hetty and wants to collar Wilkie. And Stanley Holloway who does little more than arrive at the home with bottles of beer as light relief.

This is all fairly typical of the ‘kitchen sink’ dramas of the time that purport to expose the injustice of the social system leading to poverty, violence, crime and murder, if a little over torqued. If it feels unauthentic drama wise that can’t be used as against the slum sets that don’t deodorise how terrible these places were.

It moves a briskly and the performances are good with Syms and Lom standing out. The former a sympathetic person who knows she can and wants to do better, the latter a scheming man who covets Hetty, with some charm, to then begin to exert his misogynistic power over her.

Special Features:
• New The Highs and Lows of Kennedy Matthew Sweet on No Trees in the Street
• New Passion & Poverty: An interview with Melanie Williams
• New Melvyn Hayes on No Trees in the Street
• Behind the Scenes Stills Gallery
• Original Trailer

No Trees in the Streets will premiere at Bristol’s Cinema Rediscovered Festival (24-28 July) and will be available on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital from 5 August 2024