The Blue Lamp

Depicting the damaged lives of young people “brought up in homes broken and demoralized by war,” Basil Dearden’s The Blue Lamp contrasts an earlier period of more desperate, goal-driven crime with the moral recklessness and nihilism of a new postwar era. The film’s central villain, the young, pathological Tom Riley (Dirk Bogarde) metaphorically kills the old world when he murders veteran police officer George Dixon played by Jack Warner, who, by the way, would later become the protagonist of a popular British television series. Dixon had been mentoring his partner, new recruit Andy Mitchell (Jimmy Hanley), who joins the hunt for Riley, which involves not only police but the collaboration of underground criminal figures much like in Fritz Lang’s 1931 noir precursor M. As is standard for Dearden films, location shooting abounds with shiny nighttime streets and bombed out ruins forming the backdrop for the rise in delinquency (a little girl finds the murder weapon in the river while fishing) and the thrilling car chase that nearly wipes out clusters of Londoners, including a group of schoolchildren. Patric Doonan plays Riley’s sidekick Spud, and Peggy Evans plays hysterical girlfriend Diana Lewis whose histrionics are so over-the-top that one can be forgiven for feeling relief when Tom silences her with force. While good and evil might be too tidily contrasted for some noir fans, leaving little room for moral ambiguity and unhappy endings, The Blue Lamp is one of Dearden’s strongest crime works and a staple of British noir.