Pink String and Sealing Wax

Set in Victorian Brighton, this roaring melodrama is adapted from Roland Pertwee's stage success, which takes its title from the way pharmacists used to wrap parcels containing poison. There's not an ounce of subtlety in either the acting or in Robert Hamer's direction, but the film is none the worse for that, as restraint would have rendered the whole production ridiculous. The villains have all the fun, with Mervyn Johns unexpectedly severe as the tyrannical father, Garry Marsh on career-best form as the brutal husband and Googie Withers gloriously wicked as the landlady who leads timid Gordon Jackson astray.