Sparrows Can't Sing
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Joan Littlewood
James Booth
Barbara Windsor
Roy Kinnear
George Sewell
Avis Bunnage
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
After 2 years at sea, hard-drinking merchant sailor Charlie Gooding returns to London and discovers that his East End home has been replaced by a block of new apartments and his wife, Maggie, is missing. Because of his explosive temper, his mother and neighbors are afraid to tell him that Maggie is living with Bert, a bus driver. Furious, Charlie holds his brother, Fred, hostage in the Red Lion, a local pub, until the latter's wife sends for Maggie. Charlie finally does meet his wife in the park, where she is wheeling a baby carriage, but Charlie doubts that the child is his. However, after confessing their mutual infidelities, Charlie accepts Christabel, the infant, as his daughter and takes immediate steps to move his family into his mother's home. That evening all concerned are celebrating the reunion at the Red Lion when Bert suddenly appears. The inevitable brawl follows, but Maggie thrashes Bert with her handbag. Peace is restored, and Bert philosophically decides to return to his estranged wife as Charlie and Maggie bicker, a longstanding practice of theirs.
Director
Joan Littlewood
Cast
James Booth
Barbara Windsor
Roy Kinnear
George Sewell
Avis Bunnage
Barbara Ferris
Murray Melvin
Griffith Davies
Arthur Mullard
Bob Grant
Stephen Lewis
Fanny Carby
Brian Murphy
Wally Patch
May Scagnelli
Jenny Sontag
Victor Spinetti
Yootha Joyce
Marjie Lawrence
Peggy Ann Clifford
Janet Howse
Queenie Watts
Glynn Edwards
Harry H. Corbett
Gerry Raffles
Crew
Stanley Black
Desmond Dickinson
Daniel Farson
Max Greene
Oswald Hafenrichter
Stephen Lewis
Joan Littlewood
Bill Lodge
Peter Medak
Clifford Parkes
Bernard Sarron
James Stevens
Kevin Sutton
Donald Taylor
Polly Young
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Filmed in London's East End. Opened in London in March 1963; running time: 94 min. Subtitles were added to some American release prints to ensure that the dialogue, spoken in a Cockney dialect, would be understood.
