We are the Lambeth Boys follows a group of teenagers who meet at a local youth club in the 1950s.
Karel Reisz
Leon Clore
John Fletcher
Walter Lassally
COMMENTMade for the Ford Motor Company's documentary series, Look at Britain, Karel Reisz's film follows a group of teenagers who meet at a local youth club. Reisz, who allegedly persuaded Ford to let him make it in return for directing publicity films for the company, seems to have wanted the sync-sound shooting to naturally tell the story. But a rather leaden commentary obscured the freshness of this 'first-hand' and, at the time, contentious idea of working-class youth speaking for itself. Today, in the light of Punks and Grunge, the boys from Lambeth seem rather tame, but at the end of the 'fifties their sync-comments captured the fears and aspirations of a rapidly emerging working-class youth culture that in the 'sixties, would transform British social values forever. The hip jazz soundtrack by Johnny Dankworth is in cool contrast to the old fashioned commentary and does a much better job of pointing towards the modern future the Lambeth boys yearned for.
