Rent West 11 (1963)

Of Bars and Beds - West 11 review by CH

RINSO SAVES COAL EVERY WASH DAY. To watch such a film as West 11 (1963) six decades on is to be struck by such advertising signs, and pervasive Ascot water-heaters as well as huge prams,. These would have simply been a part of daily life for contemporary audiences. This film, though, remains far more than one of period interest.

Directed by Michael Winner, from a script by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, it springs from the familiar world of boarding-house life (complete with severe landlady, Kathleen Harrison) as Alfred Lynch throws in his job at a men's outfitter on the Strand, and hangs out in the tall, terraced building where he has a room at the top - all filmed in excellent black and white.

This was a time when it was well-nigh shameful to admit to living in Notting Hill, and to smuggle Kathleen Breck into one's bed needed all the skill of a wartime operation - not mention recourse to the communal bathroom. Talking of wartime, Lynch is followed from the outfitter's by Eric Portman, a palpable spiv whose war service one might doubt, and so ensues a scheme which brings the element of a thriller to all this.

Along the way, there is many a scene in cafés and bars, not to mention crowded parties in small rooms (Diana Dors settles for anybody who offers a ride home in a taxi), and there is a strong showing for jazz. The music by Stanley Black features Ken Colyer and Acker Bilk. And one is unnerved by the chance appearance of a demonstration by the Britain First Party, whose speaker inveighs again immigration before violence erupts: there was another, troubling world beyond what one of jazz crowd calls “the same old bars and the same old beds”.

A shame that Alfred Lynch, whose character has a veritably misplaced energy throughout all this, did not appear in more films (he made notable stage appearances at the Royal Court). This is one to watch again - and to reflect that, early on, Michael Winner had a subtler hand on the camera than was to become the case. Among the extras, though, is a scene that was pruned for the released version: and perhaps it was better to leave to the staircase shadows and one's imagination the spectacle of a naked Kathleen Breck taking a tumble. When a landlady's ire is aroused there is no time to put back on what seem to be extraordinarily large bra and knickers.

Reference is made to “crispies”: fresh paper money, a term which goes back to Wodehouse and before, but not like to survive the contactless era.