View source for The Blue Lamp

{{Short description|1950 British film by Basil Dearden}}
{{For|the Grimm fairy tale 'Das bleue Licht'|The Blue Light (fairy tale)}}
{{EngvarB|date=December 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2025}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = The Blue Lamp
| image          = The_Blue_Lamp_UK_quad_poster.jpg
| caption        = Original UK quad poster by [[James Boswell (artist)|James Boswell]]
| director       = [[Basil Dearden]]
| producer       = [[Michael Balcon]]
| screenplay     = [[T. E. B. Clarke|T.E.B. Clarke]]
| based_on       = Original treatment by Jan Read and [[Ted Willis, Baron Willis|Ted Willis]]
| starring       = [[Jack Warner (actor)|Jack Warner]]<br />[[Jimmy Hanley]]<br />[[Dirk Bogarde]]<br />[[Robert Flemyng]]
| music          = [[Ernest Irving]]<br />[[Jack Parnell]] {{small|(uncredited)}}
| cinematography = [[Gordon Dines]]
| editing        = [[Peter Tanner]]
| studio         = [[Ealing Studios]]
| distributor    = [[General Film Distributors]]
| budget         = £142,304<ref name="money">Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 356.</ref>
| gross          = £246,000<ref>{{cite book|title=British Cinema of The 1950s The Decline of Deference|first1=Sue|last1= Harper|first2=Vincent|last2= Porter|publisher=Oxford University Press USA|year=2003|page=281}}</ref>
| released       = {{Film date|1950|01|20|UK|1951|1|8|New York|ref1=<ref name="Odeon"/>|ref2=<ref name="nytreview"/>}}
| runtime        = 85 minutes<ref>[https://archive.today/20150422023642/http://www.bbfc.co.uk/search/releases/any/any/any/any/any/0/any/any/aff022827/any/any/any/any?advanced=true BBFC: ''The Blue Lamp – runtime 03/11/1949''] Linked 2015-04-22</ref>
| country        = United Kingdom
| language       = English
}}

'''''The Blue Lamp''''' is a 1950 British [[police procedural]] film directed by [[Basil Dearden]] and starring [[Jack Warner (actor)|Jack Warner]] as PC Dixon, [[Jimmy Hanley]] as newcomer PC Mitchell and [[Dirk Bogarde]] as criminal Tom Riley.

The title refers to the blue lamps that traditionally hung outside British [[police station]]s. The film became the inspiration for the 1955–1976 TV series ''[[Dixon of Dock Green]]'', in which Warner continued to play PC Dixon until he was 80 years old (even though Dixon is murdered in the original film).

The screenplay was written by Ealing regular [[T. E. B. Clarke]], who had been a [[war reserve constable]]. The film is an early example of the [[social realism]] films that emerged later in the 1950s and 1960s, sometimes using a partial documentary-style approach. There are also cinematic influences of the [[film noir]] genre, particularly in underworld scenes featuring Bogarde, such as the pool rooms and in and around the theatre, making deliberate use of genre trademarks such as slow-moving low camera angles and stark lighting.

==Plot==
In the [[Paddington]] area of west London in July 1949, [[Police constable|PC]] George Dixon, a long-serving traditional policeman who is due to retire shortly, supervises new recruit Andy Mitchell, introducing him to the night beat. Dixon is unprepared when he is called to the scene of a robbery at a local cinema, where he comes face-to-face with Tom Riley, a desperate youth armed with a revolver. Dixon tries to convince Riley to surrender the weapon, but Riley panics and fires. Dixon dies in hospital some hours later.

On his beat, Mitchell finds a little girl playing with the discarded revolver. The child is eventually persuaded to lead police to the spot where she had found it. Police painstakingly drag a canal and find a raincoat that is traced to Diana Lewis's father, who remembers lending it to Riley.

In his arrogance, Riley goes to police headquarters to provide a false [[alibi]] for himself. All this accomplishes is to convince the police to place him under 24-hour watch. Riley is caught with the help of professional criminals and dog-track bookmakers, who identify him as he tries to hide in the crowd at [[White City Greyhounds|White City]] [[Greyhound racing in the United Kingdom|greyhound track]] in West London. Credit for arresting Riley falls to young Mitchell.

==Cast==
{{div col}}
* [[Jack Warner (actor)|Jack Warner]] as PC George Dixon
* [[Jimmy Hanley]] as PC Andy Mitchell
* [[Dirk Bogarde]] as Tom Riley
* [[Robert Flemyng]] as Det. Sgt. Roberts
* [[Bernard Lee]] as Det. Insp. Cherry
* [[Peggy Evans]] as Diana Lewis
* [[Patric Doonan]] as Spud
* [[Bruce Seton]] as PC Campbell
* [[Meredith Edwards (actor)|Meredith Edwards]] as PC Hughes
* [[Clive Morton]] as Sgt. Brooks
* [[William Mervyn]] as Chief Inspector Hammond
* [[Frederick Piper]] as Alf Lewis
* [[Dora Bryan]] as Maisie
* [[Gladys Henson]] as Mrs. Dixon
* [[Tessie O'Shea]] as herself
* [[Sam Kydd]] as Bookmakers Assistant White City (uncredited) 
* [[Anthony Steel (actor)|Anthony Steel]] as Police Constable (uncredited)<ref name="vagg">{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/the-emasculation-of-anthony-steel-a-cold-streak-saga/|title=The Emasculation of Anthony Steel: A Cold Streak Saga
|date=23 September 2020}}</ref>
{{div col end}}
The ensemble cast also included uncredited actors who later became better known in film, television and radio, including [[Alma Cogan]], [[Glyn Houston]], [[Jennifer Jayne]], [[Glen Michael]], [[Arthur Mullard]], [[Norman Shelley]], [[Rosemary Nicols]] (in her film debut as a street urchin) and [[Campbell Singer]].

==Production==
The character of "Diana" was initially envisioned with [[Diana Dors]] in mind, to the extent that the character's name was derived from her own. Nevertheless, the producers harboured reservations about Dors's suitability for the role, citing concerns regarding her emotional maturity. Consequently, a decision was made by the director to pivot away from Dors and opt for a "waif type" persona, leading to the casting of [[Peggy Evans]] for the character.<ref>{{cite book|first=Diana|last=Dors|title=Swingin' Dors|year=1960|publisher=World Distributors|page=25}}</ref>

The production had the full co-operation of the [[Metropolitan Police]], and the crew was thus able to use the actual Paddington Green Police Station at 64 Harrow Road, London W9 and [[New Scotland Yard]] for location work. Most of the outdoor scenes were filmed in inner west London, mainly the [[Harrow Road]] precincts between Paddington and [[Westbourne Green|Westbourne Park]]. George Dixon is named after producer [[Michael Balcon]]'s former school in [[Birmingham]].

==Locations==
[[Image:HarrowRd PoliceStn.jpg|thumb|The Harrow Road Police Station, with reproduction blue lamp]]
[[File:St Mary Magdalene, Paddington (2).JPG|thumb|St. Mary Magdalene]]
The original blue lamp was transferred to the new [[Paddington Green Police Station]]. It is still outside the front of the station and was restored in the early 21st century. Most of the locations around the police station are unrecognisable now because of the [[Marylebone]] flyover. The police station at 325 Harrow Road, not far from the site of the Coliseum Cinema (324–326 Harrow Road), which is also shown in the film, has a reproduction blue lamp at its entrance.

The Metropolitan Theatre of Varieties, featured prominently at the start of the film, was demolished because it was thought likely that the Marylebone flyover would need the site, although that turned out not to be the case. It is now the site of Paddington Green Police Station. The scene involving a robbery on a [[jeweller]]'s shop was filmed at the nearby branch of national chain, [[F. Hinds]] (then at 290 Edgware Road). This was also razed when the flyover was built.

The scenes of the cinema robbery were filmed at the Coliseum Cinema on Harrow Road, next to the [[Grand Union Canal]] bridge. The cinema was probably built in 1922, was closed in 1956 and later demolished.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cinematreasures.org/theater/18107/|title=Coliseum Cinema in London, GB – Cinema Treasures|website=cinematreasures.org}}</ref> The site is now occupied by an office of Paddington Churches [[Housing Association]].

Some of the streets used or seen in the film include: [[Harrow Road]] W2 and W9, Bishop's Bridge Road W2, Westbourne Terrace Bridge Road W9, Delamere Terrace, [[Blomfield Road]], Formosa Street, Lord Hill's Road, Kinnaird Street and Senior Street W2, [[Ladbroke Grove]] W10, [[Portobello Road]] W11, [[Latimer Road]], Sterne Street W12 and Hythe Road NW10. The church which features prominently towards the end is [[St Mary Magdalene, Paddington|St Mary Magdalene]], Senior Street W2.<ref>[http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/postcodes/places/W2.html Map of W2 locations] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111030125733/http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/postcodes/places/W2.html |date=30 October 2011 }} at the [[Museum of London]]</ref> Most of the streets around the church were demolished in the 1960s to make way for the new Warwick Estate in [[Maida Vale#Little Venice|Little Venice]].

Tom Riley's home was in the run-down street of Amberley Mews, north of the canal, and is now the site of Ellwood Court, part of the Amberley Estate. It is from this mews that Riley walks into Formosa Street, then crosses the Halfpenny Bridge. He then goes into Diana Lewis's flat on the corner of Delamere Terrace and Lord Hill's Road where he attacks her and is chased out by the following detective. Then follows one of the first extended car chases in British film. The route of the chase is as follows: Senior Street W2, Clarendon Crescent W2, Harrow Road W9, Ladbroke Grove W10, Portobello Road W11, Ladbroke Grove W10, Royal Crescent W10, Portland Road W10, Penzance Place W10, Freston Road W10, Hythe Road NW10, Sterne Street W12 – then a chase on foot into Wood Lane and then to [[White City Stadium]].<ref>See also [http://www.glias.org.uk/news/223news.html#K Paddington – on film] at Greater London Industrial Archaeology</ref> Most of the chase is a logical following of Riley's car apart from when the car goes from Hythe Road NW10 into Sterne Street – Hythe Road in 1949 was a dead end.

==Reception==
===Critical===
''The Blue Lamp'' premiered on 20 January 1950 at the [[Odeon Leicester Square]] in London,<ref name=Odeon>[http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=TTDA&userGroupName=kenlib&tabID=T003&docPage=article&searchType=BasicSearchForm&docId=CS167987764&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0 The Times, 20 Jan. 1950, page 10: ''Picture Theatres – Odeon, Leicester Square: The Blue Lamp''] Linked 2015-04-22</ref> and the reviewer for ''[[The Times]]'' found the depiction of the police work very plausible and realistic and praised the performances of Dirk Bogarde and Peggy Evans, but found Jack Warner's and Jimmy Hanley's characterisation of the two policemen to have been portrayed in an exceedingly traditional manner: "There is an indefinable feel of the theatrical backcloth behind their words and actions&nbsp;... The sense that the policemen they are acting are not policemen as they really are, but policemen as an indulgent tradition has chosen to think they are, will not be banished."<ref>[http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=TTDA&userGroupName=kenlib&tabID=T003&docPage=article&searchType=BasicSearchForm&docId=CS134957620&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0 The Times, 20 Jan. 1950, page 8: ''Odeon Cinema: "The Blue Lamp"''] Linked 2015-04-22</ref>

In the context of a campaign against perceived "middle-class complacency" in British filmmaking, ''[[Sight & Sound|Sight and Sound]]'' editor [[Gavin Lambert]] (writing under a pseudonym) attacked the film's "specious brand of mediocrity" and suggested the film was "boring and parochial", views that caused outrage.<ref>Cited by Geoffrey Macnab in the article [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/is-it-time-for-british-cinema-to-rediscover-the-aga-saga-2015919.html "Time for British cinema to rediscover the Aga saga?"] at ''[[The Independent]]'' 2 July 2010. Retrieved 7 January 2015</ref>{{Failed verification|date=October 2023}}

Upon the film's American release in early 1951, critic [[Bosley Crowther]] of [[The New York Times|''The New York Times'']] wrote: "A warm and affectionate tribute to the London metropolitan police in the daily performance of their duties is cleverly interlaced with a good running crime melodrama of a conspicuously realistic sort ... Full of fresh human interest touches, as well as honest admiration for the police, this film combines lively entertainment with a solid chunk of social argument."<ref name="nytreview">{{cite news |last=Crowther |first=Bosley |date=1951-01-09 |title='Blue Lamp,' British Import, With Jack Warner, Unveiled at Park Avenue Theatre |work=[[The New York Times]] |page=25}}</ref>

===Box-office===
The film had the highest audiences in Britain for a British film that year.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18193224 |title=Critics Praise Drama: Comedians Win Profits. |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |location=NSW |date=29 December 1950 |access-date=7 January 2015 |page=3 }} at [[National Library of Australia#Trove|Trove]]</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://archive.org/details/Screen_Volume_32_Issue_3/page/n17|magazine=Screen|page=258|volume=32|issue=3|title=The popular cash and culture in the postwar British cinema industry|first=Janet|last=Thumim}}</ref> According to ''[[Kinematograph Weekly]]'' the "biggest winners" at the box office in 1950 Britain were ''The Blue Lamp'', ''[[The Happiest Days of Your Life (film)|The Happiest Days of Your Life]]'', ''[[Annie Get Your Gun (film)|Annie Get Your Gun]]'', ''[[The Wooden Horse]]'', ''[[Treasure Island (1950 film)|Treasure Island]]'' and ''[[Odette (1950 film)|Odette]]''.<ref>{{cite book|page=233|title=Blackout : reinventing women for wartime British cinema|last=Lant|first= Antonia|year=1991 |publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref>

===Awards===
The film won the 1951 [[BAFTA Award for Best British Film]] and was nominated for the [[Golden Lion]] at the 1950 [[11th Venice International Film Festival|Venice Film Festival]].<ref>[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042265/awards IMDb: ''The Blue Lamp (1950) – Awards''] Linked 2015-04-22</ref>

==Legacy==
In 1951, a stage play of the same name was written by [[Ted Willis, Baron Willis|Willis]] and Read. It ran for 32 performances at the [[Hippodrome, London|Hippodrome]] in London. It also played at the [[Bristol Hippodrome|Hippodrome]] in Bristol.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://theatricalia.com/play/3xq/the-blue-lamp/production/8ht|title=Production of The Blue Lamp – Theatricalia|website=theatricalia.com}}</ref> In 1952, the play ran for 192 performances in a summer season at the [[Grand Theatre, Blackpool]], Lancashire. [[Gordon Harker]] took the role of George Dixon, while Jack Warner played Chief Inspector Cherry.<ref>Wearing, J. P. The London Stage 1950-1959: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014 p.198</ref>

Several of the characters and actors were carried over into the TV series ''[[Dixon of Dock Green]]'', including the resurrected Dixon, still played by [[Jack Warner (actor)|Warner]]. The series ran on [[BBC Television]] ([[BBC One|BBC1]]) for twenty-one years from 1955 to 1976, with Warner being over eighty by the time of its conclusion.

In 1988, Arthur Ellis's [[Satire|satirical]] [[BBC Two]] play ''The Black and Blue Lamp'' had the film characters of Riley ([[Sean Chapman]]) and PC "Taffy" Hughes ([[Karl Johnson (actor)|Karl Johnson]]) [[Time travel|transported forward in time]] into an episode of ''The Filth'', a gritty contemporary police television series, replacing their modern-day counterparts.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.the-mausoleum-club.org.uk/Index/Gazette/Black%20and%20Blue%20Lamp.pdf |title=Black and Blue Lamp.qxp |access-date=22 May 2010 |archive-date=20 November 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081120065258/http://www.the-mausoleum-club.org.uk/Index/Gazette/Black%20and%20Blue%20Lamp.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier]]'' by [[Alan Moore]] and [[Kevin O'Neill (comics)|Kevin O'Neill]] has one panel suggesting a George Dixon died in August 1898, the time-period given for the first two graphic novels, as well as ''[[The War of the Worlds]]''.
There is a real George Dixon (1820–98) who was a Victorian politician whom [[George Dixon Academy|Balcon's school]] was named after.

In 2010, the BBC Television drama ''[[Ashes to Ashes (British TV series)|Ashes to Ashes]]'' concluded with a short clip of George Dixon, referring to the similarity to Dixon's death in ''The Blue Lamp'' and subsequent resurrection for the television series and the underlying plot of the show.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.denofgeek.com/television/489621/the_significance_of_the_final_shot_of_ashes_to_ashes.html| title = The significance of the final shot of Ashes to Ashes| access-date = 25 May 2010| author = Simon Brew| date = 21 May 2010| work = Den of Geek| publisher = Dennis Publishing}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160520033348/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6a5e096b ''The Blue Lamp''] at the [[British Film Institute]]{{better source needed|reason=Help request: a live link can be searched for at https://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/search/expert – if available, replace the archive URL with the live link. Or if none found, remove this 'better source needed' template. | date=October 2023}}
* {{Screenonline title|447704|The Blue Lamp}}
* {{BBFC title|AFF022827|The Blue Lamp}}
* {{IMDb title|id=0042265|title=The Blue Lamp}}
*[https://www.reelstreets.com/films/blue-lamp-the/ ''The Blue Lamp'' location shots] at Reelstreets

{{Basil Dearden}}
{{Michael Balcon}}
{{BAFTA Best British Film}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blue Lamp, The}}
[[Category:1950 films]]
[[Category:1950s crime thriller films]]
[[Category:1950s police procedural films]]
[[Category:British crime thriller films]]
[[Category:British black-and-white films]]
[[Category:Police detective films]]
[[Category:Films set in London]]
[[Category:Films shot in London]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Metropolitan Police officers]]
[[Category:Best British Film BAFTA Award winners]]
[[Category:Films directed by Basil Dearden]]
[[Category:Films produced by Michael Balcon]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by T. E. B. Clarke]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by Ted Willis, Baron Willis]]
[[Category:Ealing Studios films]]
[[Category:Films adapted into television shows]]
[[Category:Films and television featuring Greyhound racing]]
[[Category:Films set in 1949]]
[[Category:Films about social realism]]
[[Category:Greyhound racing films]]
[[Category:1950s English-language films]]
[[Category:1950s British films]]
[[Category:Films scored by Ernest Irving]]
[[Category:English-language crime thriller films]]