Something Always Happens

This is a truly delightful early Michael Powell film, crisply directed and edited, with excellent cinematography, and it is extraordinary that an early British film of such quality is so little known. There is a striking performance by child actor John Singer, aged 11, as a runaway orphan who is taken up by Ian Hunter, a gent down on his luck and penniless because of his compulsive gambling. The two move in together (no, paedophilia did not yet exist!) and together charm and wheedle their way to a landlady's heart (played with alternate fierceness and charm by Muriel George), so that they get the room for free until their ship comes in, plus huge breakfasts because she loves children. Ian Hunter is excellent as the lead, and one forgives him instantly for his foibles because he is no nice. Meanwhile he meets Nancy O'Neill, who is excellent with her tongue-in-cheek masquerade as a poor girl, whereas she is really the daughter of a business magnate. She urges Hunter to apply to her father for a job, not revealing who she is, but Hunter ends up becoming the competition. If only business success were that easy! But oh well, this is the movies. Peter Gawthorne is amusing as the intimidating papa, exasperated one moment and melting the next. Needless to say, this is one of those films where everything goes well and hardships are overcome, though there is a bizarre shift in plot emphasis from the boy to the girl, and it does seem as if two stories were stuck together rather unconvincingly. But never mind, it is all a delight and so well done that we just enjoy every minute of it.