Pool of London (1951) Blazing a Trail for Black British Cinema (Review)

Studio Canal’s latest presentation of London’s finest cinema exponent, Ealing studios, defied all expectations for what one of their films should be. Basil Dearden’s Pool of London evokes the charm associated with an Ealing film whilst also including a complexity beyond the studio’s typical relationship with criminality. An approach to taboos that Dearden furthered in his most famous film, 1961’s Victim, in which a prominent lawyer goes after a blackmailer who threatens gay men with exposure (homosexual acts still being illegal) whilst being gay himself. And on an even more basic level, Pool of London stands out with its two leads both speaking with an American accent – a weird note for a studio retroactively engaged to “Britishness”.

Deardan’s film tells the story of sailors and best friends, Dan (Bonar Colleano) and Johnny (Earl Cameron). Dan is a bit of a cad and man about town, when he isn’t trying to dance with all the girls he is often caught smuggling small pieces into the region of the capital referred to as the Pool of London. A ploy which sees him swept up in the sort of criminality that became the norm for the West London studio. Johnny, on the other hand, is a black man in a time of tension who just wants to find his place in the world, most of the time he just mixes with his friends, of which he will do anything for Dan. While on shore, Johnny finds a life that he could have with Pat (Susan Shaw), a plot point which extends throughout effectively functioning as the heartbeat of the piece. As the film comes to a close, the fates of the two friends intersect.

Whether unintentionally or intentionally, Ealing didn’t really depict people of colour, not through any malevolence but more to do with the lions-share of their productions being, brilliant, vehicles for a generation of Britain’s finest performers who were uniformly white. The colour of those performers skin wasn’t an issue, they just worked with that which was presented to them. Dearden’s film, on the other hand, stands out as Ealing never really concerned themselves with the social and moral conundrums of post-war Britain.

Here, the issue of race isn’t looked at for a great deal of time with any early potential remark swerved, allowing Johnny to just another man on board the Dunbar. The further the film goes the more that veneer of civility peels away, with comments directed at Johnny from some quarters equating the colour of his skin to the nature of his temperament when he has his money stolen, opening the floodgates to an array of distasteful remarks about his race. Pool of London will never be discussed as one of the finer discourses on racism, but it is one of British cinema’s first with a black man in a lead role. As is always the case with those trailblazers, the message may be crude but their importance comes from them just having a fair & balanced role in an era where racism was more social convention than social poison.

The home video market is great at plucking films from relative obscurity with all imaginable genres and movements represented, however, Ealing stands out for a different reason. Much of the film is a winning relationship drama, what the film represents is not the hideously convoluted mess that constitutes modern dating but a world of absolute simplicity. Whether it’s Dan, Johnny or any of the other sailors, the way the film positions a dance hall and small local pub as the epicentre of people’s lives creates this odd status quo in which nostalgia can be felt for a time before your birth.

Bonar Colleano died tragically young but he left behind some quality performances, his character here is every bit the equal of another iconic American performance in a British film – Jules Dassin’s Night and the City and Richard Widmark’s role. He is the archetypal fast-talking archetype found in noir’s, only with a cheekier more relatable edge. Both Colleano and Widmark, feature as men on the wrong side of London and both are films which wax lyrically about the city, although one is concerned with the underbelly and one the mainstream – however, together they form a brilliant double feature.

Basil Dearden’s Pool of London isn’t the most significant film to tackle racism, nor is it one of the more entertaining Ealing works. Where its significance is found, though, is just there, that a film so riotously engaging and welcoming can still count as a lesser film shows just how strong a body of work the studio left behind. Representation may well have decades away at this point, but as far as first steps towards giving real and relatable roles to actors of colour, Earl Cameron is about as strong as an early step as you could hope to make.

Thanks for reading our review of Pool of London

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