Those Kids from Town (1942)

Those Kids from Town is a 1942 British, black-and-white, comedy-drama propaganda film war film, directed by Lance Comfort and starring George Cole, Harry Fowler, Percy Marmont, Ronald Shiner as Mr. Bert Burns and Charles Victor as Harry, the Vicar. It was produced by Richard Vernon and presented by British National Films and Anglo-American Film Corporation. The film is adapted for the screen, by Adrian Alington, from his own, topical novel These Our Strangers, dealing with the experiences of a group of wartime evacuee children from London, sent to safety in a rural village, and their interaction with the host community. Of the juvenile actors involved, Fowler (making his screen debut here aged 15) and Cole (then 16) would go on to very successful adult careers, while Angela Glynne and Stanley Escane had more modest careers for the next decade or so.

Synopsis

On the outbreak of the Second World War, a group of six children from the East End of London are evacuated to the village of Payling Green. The boisterous pair Charlie and Ern are lodged with the local vicar and proceed to torment, mock and terrorise his sensitive and delicate son. They then get involved in petty-thieving and vandalism, before being taken under the protective wing of a local female novelist with progressive social views.

Actors