Flame in the Streets (1961)

Interesting facts

• Filmed in: Pinewood Studios

Flame in the Streets is a 1961 British film directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring John Mills and Sylvia Syms. The screenplay was by Ted Willis based on his 1958 play Hot Summer Night and was novelised by John Burke for Four Square Books. The film was made in CinemaScope.

Production

Flame in the Streets was produced at Pinewood Studios by the Rank Organisation, with Willis moving the action from the "hot summer night" of his original play to Guy Fawkes Night. Filming began on 5 November 1960. The new title recalled Willis's earlier play No Trees in the Street, which had itself been filmed two years before.

It was one of a number of "girlfriend" parts Syms played around this time.

Baker says the title was changed from Hot Summer Nights because they shot it in Winter.

Baker said "the theme was a bit corny, about the white girl who falls in love with the black man. I thought we did rather well with it actually. But there again it wasn’t really a popular picture because nobody wanted to know. You see it wasn’t a comic in any way.

In his autobiography, The Director's Cut (2000), Roy Ward Baker noted that the film had recently been shown at a Brixton cinema "to mark the 50th anniversary of the arrival in Britain of the steamer Windrush, bringing Caribbeans to work here. ... Some of the older ones [in the audience] testified that it was a true picture of the conditions the incomers faced and in some areas still do face."

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