''The Silent Playground'' is a 1963 British
thriller film
Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...
written and directed by Stanley Goulder and starring
Bernard Archard
Bernard Joseph Archard (20 August 1916 – 1 May 2008) was an English actor who made many film and television appearances.
Early life and career
Archard was born in Fulham, London, where his father Alfred James Aloysius who was born in Maryleb ...
,
Jean Anderson
Jean Anderson (12 December 1907 – 1 April 2001) was an English actress best remembered for her television roles as hard-faced matriarch Mary Hammond in the BBC drama '' The Brothers'' (1972–1976) and as rebellious aristocrat Lady Jocelyn "J ...
and
Roland Curram
Roland Curram (born 1932) is an English actor and novelist.
Curram was educated at Brighton College and has had a long film, television and theatre career. His appearances include Julie Christie's travelling companion in her Oscar-winning film ...
.
Plot
In
Greenwich
Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross.
Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...
, London, just before Christmas, Mavis Nugent, a young widow, drops her children outside the cinema for
Saturday morning pictures
Saturday morning pictures were film shows put on in British cinemas between the 1920s and 1970s for children. They were shown on Saturday mornings and the price was normally 6d (2½p). At their peak, nearly 2,000 British cinemas put on a Saturday ...
so that she can go to work at a local haberdashers. A man approaches the cinema queue and gives out handfuls of what the children take to be sweets. At the end of the film showing the cinema staff find several of the children unconscious with barbiturate poisoning. A police investigation begins, led by Inspector Duffy. After one of the children blacks out in the street, a friend of his shows the police two types of capsules. At the hospital Dr Green and the nurses fight to save the children.
After his mother realises that her adult son does not have all of the mental health medication that had been dispensed to him that morning, the hunt shifts to a nervous and vulnerable hospital outpatient, Simon Lacey, who has been unwittingly handing out the pills. The police are able to apprehend him, but not before he has thrown away the rest of the drugs in a playground where children are playing. Meanwhile police search for Mrs Nugent and her three children.
Cast
Production
The film was shot on location in 24 days for $75,000 by debut feature director Goulder, who had previously made documentaries.
Reception
It was a commercial disappointment.
''
The Monthly Film Bulletin
''The Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 to April 1991, when it merged with ''Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those with a ...
'' wrote: "Presumably intended as another warning to children not "to take sweets from a stranger", the film rams the message home by making several of the victims die, but does it in the manner of a conventional soap opera. The main weakness is in the character of Lacey (very badly played by the actor as a drooling stage idiot) who is later turned into an entirely melodramatic figure by means of shock cuts and glowering close-ups. The rest of the playing is fairly standard repertory, but the location shooting in streets, woods and docks is quite lively."
''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' wrote: "Brought in in 24 days at a modest $75,000, with entire location shooting and a little known cast, this is one of British Lion's frequent recent attempts to prove that the dualler can be top level product in entertainment and technical content. This exciting little drama amply proves the distributors' point. It is a quality production which scores heavily against some of its loftier rivals. Writer-director Stanley Boulder has had documentary experience but this is his first essay in feature work. His screenplay is taut, economic and natural in dialog and his direction is unfussy and alert. Technically he has smart aid, with crisp cutting, an evocative unobtrusive score by Tristram Carey and fine lensing by Martin Curtis which not only captures the atmosphere of the London suburb in which the pic was shot but produces some really attractive, bleak photography in river and snow sequences."
''
TV Guide
TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or t ...
'' wrote that "The story never panders to its more sensational elements but is, instead, an intelligent and sensitive thriller".
References
External links
Reviewat Variety
Silent Playgroundat
IMDb
IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...
Woolwich in Film: The Silent Playground''The Silent Playground''then-and-now location photographs a
ReelStreets
1963 films
British crime thriller films
British black-and-white films
Films directed by Stanley Goulder
1960s English-language films
1960s British films
Films scored by Tristram Cary
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