The Weak and the Wicked

Bristol-born J. Lee Thompson (best known for The Guns of Navarone and 1962’s Cape Fear) directs a powerful and realistic depiction of the lives of a number of British women serving time in prison. Starring Glynis Johns and Diana Dors. The upbeat story of Jean Raymond, the upper-middle-class girl gone to the bad because of her gambling habit, but rescued by the love of a good man, lies at the centre of the film, but at the margins there are some more hard-hitting images: the mother forcibly separated from her nine-month-old child, to be given up for adoption and never seen again – a scene that cultural commentator Michael Bracewell described as alive with “tragedy and brutality” – and the plight of single mother Babs, who misguidedly leaves her child ‘home alone’ for one night, only to find him dead when she returns. *Season 3 ‘Classic + Cuppa’ strand is bought to you as part of Cinema Rediscovered, the UK’s leading festival of classic cinema that brings rediscoveries and rarities back to the big screen.