The Blue Lamp

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The Blue Lamp

Directed by	Basil Dearden
Written by	T.E.B. Clarke
Starring	Jack Warner Jimmy Hanley Dirk Bogarde Robert Flemyng
Release date(s)	1950
Running time	84 min
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Blue Lamp is a British crime film released in early 1950 by Ealing Studios. Directed by Basil Dearden and starring Jack Warner, Jimmy Hanley and an early and defining role for Dirk Bogarde. It was the progenitor of the long-running television series Dixon of Dock Green.

The title of the film refers to the blue lamp which traditionally hung outside British police stations. The producers obtained full co-operation from the Metropolitan Police and were therefore able to use the real-life Paddington Green Police Station and New Scotland Yard for location work; most of the other locations were in inner west London, but are not recognisable now due to rebuilding in the 1960s. The Metropolitan Theatre of Varieties, featured prominently, was demolished because it was thought likely that the Marylebone flyover would need the site, although that turned out not to be the case. It is now the site of Paddington Green Police Station. White City Greyhound Track is now the site of BBC Television Centre.

The story, written by veteran Thomas Ernest Bennett Clarke (an ex-policeman), is on the cusp of the change to the "social realism" films that would emerge in that decade, but still holds close to a simple moral structure. The police are the honest guardians of a decent society, controlling the disorganized crime of a few unruly youths.

Several of the characters and actors were carried over into the series Dixon of Dock Green, including the resurrected Dixon himself, again played by Warner. The series ran on BBC Television for twenty-one years from 1955 to 1976, with Warner being over eighty by the time of its conclusion.

The original Blue Lamp was transferred to the new Paddington Green Police Station. It is still outside the front of the Station and has been recently been restored.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The action takes place in the area of London known as Paddington Green, and is set just a few years after the end of World War II. Police Constable George Dixon (Warner) a long-serving traditional "copper" who is due to retire shortly, takes a new recruit, Andy Mitchell (Hanley), under his aegis, introducing him to the easy-going night beat. Dixon is a classic Ealing 'ordinary' hero. but also anachronistic, unprepared and unable to answer the violence of Tom Riley (Bogarde). Called to the scene of a robbery at a theatre, Dixon finds himself face-to-face with Riley, a desperate youth armed with a revolver. Dixon initially tries to talk Riley into surrendering the weapon, but Riley panics and fires. Dixon walks to his own death almost uncomprehending.

Dixon is taken to hospital, but dies some hours later. The ending is another Ealing quirk, with ordinary decent society, including 'professional' criminals used to violence, banding together to track down and catch the murderer, who is trapped in the crowd at a greyhound track. To Andy Mitchell falls the honor of arresting Riley.