Pink String and Sealing Wax

Pink String and Sealing Wax
Directed by	Robert Hamer
Written by	Robert Hamer (script contribution)
Screenplay by	Diana Morgan
Based on	Pink String and Sealing Wax (play) by Roland Pertwee
Produced by	Michael Balcon
Starring	Mervyn Johns
Cinematography	Stanley Pavey
Edited by	Michael Truman
Music by	Norman Demuth
Color process	Black and white
Production company	Ealing Studios
Distributed by	Eagle-Lion Distrib. Ltd
Release dates	20 November 1945 (1945-11-20) (London) 7 January 1946 (1946-01-07) (UK) 2 September 1949 (1949-09-02) (London-premiere) October 2, 1950 (1950-10-02) (USA)
Running time	90 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$620,000

Pink String and Sealing Wax is a 1945 British drama film directed by Robert Hamer and starring Mervyn Johns. It is based on a play with the same name by Roland Pertwee. It was the first feature film Robert Hamer directed on his own.

The title derives from the practice of pharmacists in the Victorian and Edwardian age of wrapping drugs in a package sealed with pink string and sealing wax to show the package had not been tampered with.

Summary

The story is set in Brighton in 1880. Pharmacist Sutton, a strict, arbitrary father, scolds his son David (Gordon Jackson) for writing love verses instead of seeing to business at the pharmacy. He dismisses David's explanation that he is in love and wants to marry. At home, he refuses permission for his older daughter Victoria to train as a professional singer. Sutton then dismisses Peggy, his younger daughter, for her objections to his vivisection of guinea pigs There are also two younger children. After supper, David reacts to his dad's tough-as-nails attitude by visiting a local pub. While there, he overhears two women gossiping about the landlord's wife, Pearl, and her liaison with another man. Later, David, feeling tipsy, bumps into Pearl outside and engages her in conversation. By the time he arrives home, he is barely sober enough to prepare for bed.

Later, Victoria and Peggy, forbidden from seeing a popular opera singer's concert, decide to wait outside the stage door. Victoria gains the singer's attention by singing "There's No Place Like Home" (Home! Sweet Home!). The singer invites them to supper and arranges for Victoria to attend an audition at London's Royal College of Music. They collect enough money to pay for Victoria's train fare to London. Her audition is a success and she receives a full scholarship offer, which she intends to accept, against the wishes of her father. He says that the scholarship may pay for her tuition, but that he will not allow her a penny to provide food and lodging, meaning she cannot take it up. Mrs Sutton suggests that the money she brought to the marriage could be used to support Victoria, but her husband points out that according to law, that money belongs to him, and she has no say in the matter. She sorrowfully tells him that his children fear him instead of loving him, and hide their true selves from him because he has never tried to understand them, or look on them as people in their own right. She also says that were it not for the ages of the youngest children, she could find it in herself to leave him. Mr Sutton is shocked.

Back in Brighton, Pearl visits David at the pharmacy to treat a cut she got from Joe, her husband. David tends to her injury and warns her of tetanus. He discusses the various poisons on the shelf. Pearl steals some of them while he is out of the room fetching her a glass of milk.

Pearl returns to the bar and is told Joe has collapsed drunk upstairs. Pearl cuts Joe's hand with a cut-throat razor while he sleeps. When Pearl eventually plucks up courage to poison him, she is shocked by the ferocity of his death. She locks the door but then bashes on it crying, "Let me in!" Later, a doctor pronounces Joe dead. He suspects the death was caused by tetanus from the cut. However, after Joe's burial, a police inspector informs Pearl that her husband's body is to be exhumed for a post mortem. Pearl attempts to avoid suspicion. She visits Mr. Sutton and claims David gave her the poison but said it was to "put Joe off the drink" and that unless Mr Sutton records death from tetanus, Pearl will market sure David hangs for murder. However, Sutton sees through the ruse and reveals that it was his expert opinion to the police that caused her dead husband's exhumation in the first place. For once, he actually speaks to his son, who tells him the truth of what happened. Mr Sutton visits Pearl and tells her that David is even now speaking to the police. She is at first furious, then starts to weep, but gets little sympathy from Sutton, nor from the man she loves, who abandons her the moment it is certain that Pearl cannot avoid arrest for murder. Afterwards, she wanders in a daze to the outer edge of the promenade and throws herself off a cliff.

Cast

• Mervyn Johns as Mr. Edward Sutton
• Mary Merrall as Mrs. Ellen Sutton
• Gordon Jackson as David Sutton
• Jean Ireland as Victoria Sutton
• Sally Ann Howes as Margaret "Peggy" Sutton
• Colin Simpson as James Sutton
• David Wallbridge as Nicholas Sutton
• Googie Withers as Pearl Bond
• John Carol as Dan Powell
• Catherine Lacey as Miss Porter the gossip
• Garry Marsh as Joe Bond
• Pauline Letts as Louise
• Maudie Edwards as Mrs. Webster
• Frederick Piper as Dr. Pepper
• John Owers as Frank a barman
• Helen Goss as Maudie a barmaid
• Margaret Ritchie as Madame Adelina Patti
• Don Stannard as John Bevan
• John Ruddock as Judge
• Ronald Adam as Clerk of the Court
• Charles Carson as Editor
• Valentine Dyall as Police Inspector
• David Keir as Stage Door Keeper

Release

The film premiered in London on 3 December 1945 at the Tivoli Cinema on The Strand and the Marble Arch Pavilion. The critic in The Times praised Googie Withers and Gordon Jackson for their roles, and concluded that Robert Hamer, "has made, in spite of occasional lapses and longueurs, a promising beginning as a director."

External links

• Pink String and Sealing Wax at the British Film Institute
• Pink String and Sealing Wax at the BFI's Screenonline
• Pink String and Sealing Wax at the British Board of Film Classification
• Pink String and Sealing Wax at IMDb