mark.waltz Starting off slowly and moving to a boil, this movie quickly cools and sadly never regains momentum. But for those middle of the movie moments, this is like a volcano that suddenly burps and dies. With the gorgeous Maureen O'Hara, you'd think it's her, but the honors of making this rise up is the unrecognizable Dame Sybil Thorndike who, complete with wart and mustache, becomes as close to a Dickens character in a non Dickens character. She's a vicious blackmailer, seemingly just around the corner from death, but being the daughter of Satan plaguing the London slums, she's the type of character that you could see living forever.O'Hara is completely ladylike member of the upper middle class (not quite rich, buy mighty close...) who falls for a sophisticated but poor artist (the unrecognizable Dana Andrews) who secretly drinks and turns her marriage into a nightmare. Thorndike, stalking O'Hara and Andrews, witnesses what appears to be his accidental death, and viciously manipulates O'Hara into a payoff. Along comes a promising puppeteer (also Andrews!) who gets the pleasure of dealing with this vicious hag. That's where this loses steam, going from hag to sag within just a very short time.This had so much potential for becoming a classic Gothic thriller, with Thorndike as unforgettable as Martita Hunt in the recent "Great Expectations", but changes to the direction don't really help sustain complete interest. This is gorgeous to look at with upper middle class homes and the peasant setting stark contrasts to each other yet both stunning to look at. Wilfred Hyde White is commanding as O'Hara's father, and the rest of the ensemble seems perfectly suited to the period. Had I been an Academy voter in 1949, I would have pushed Thorndike for Best Supporting Actress, one of the great movie villainesses I've seen in a long time.

clanciai What a wonderful film this is! It is difficult to catalogue all its vast variations of deserts, with sudden turn of events and charming details constantly renewing and refreshing the story, which is like a Dickens novel. Maureen O'Hara is always good but here better than ever, while Dana Andrews takes you by surprise with this virtuoso performance totally out of his ordinary style, vying in charm with Robert Donat; while the prize goes to Sybil Thorndike, who makes a really frightening witch with more than one bag of evil up her sleeve, which she uses with calculation and effective impact.It's really an environmental film depicting a slum area with exciting intrigue and characters and fascinating idylls of the gutter. It's related with another environmental London film of the same time, "London Belongs to Me" with equally convincing documentary rendering of local life in London town, but here the events take place long before the turn of the century - Bernard Shaw is mentioned as a rising star in the beginning of his career.The miracle of the story is how a tragedy is turned to its opposite. A failed painter leaves behind the result of his secret hobby work, making puppets, and these turn out to be his real masterpiece. A really hopeless tragedy of bleak dreariness with no way out is miraculously turned into comedy by his puppets coming alive. The process of this U-turn of fate is completely natural, and a tragedy of human decay, failure, alcoholism and dishonour is suddenly reversed into a cheerful comedy - the real comedian is Maureen O'Hara's helpful brother, who understands things his own way. The end of it is how the dreadfully sultry slum turns into a wonderland of idylls and charm in spite of all, and there, ultimately, after all the heartbreaks, the heart nevertheless will remain.(I wrote this review previously, but it was apparently lost in a power cut. Maybe it can be retrieved. If not, here is what I could do to recreate it.)

moonspinner55 Not-bad studio-set drama, also known as "The Forbidden Street", involves miscast Maureen O'Hara (her rolling Irish burr more pronounced than ever) as a wealthy young British woman in Victorian England who marries a penniless art-instructor and moves with him into the slums of London; after an accidental death, O'Hara is blackmailed by the local busybody, but finds redemption in congenial--though already married--Dana Andrews. Neither O'Hara nor Andrews gives a particularly strong performance, but the supporting players are good and the screenplay (by talented Ring Lardner Jr., from a book by Margery Sharp) nicely avoids soap opera and predictability by continually changing its tone and direction. O'Hara's character goes through just as many changes, turning from wide-eyed girl to fed-up housewife to salty broad to society bride! The set designs are impeccable, and the film is well-mounted and paced with a jovial step. *** from ****

John_B_Beck Dana Andrews first character in the movie was as 'Henry Lambert' not 'Herbert Lambert' and he didn't fall out a window - he fell down the stairs. I watched this movie today on Fox and I liked it - I didn't think that I would at first. This movie was also titled: "Affairs of Adelaide" and "The Forbidden Street". The story was a from a book by Margery Sharp entitled: "Britannia Mews". She also wrote the books from which the animated features "The Rescuers" (1977) and "The Rescuers Down Under" (1990) were drawn. I would buy this movie (The Forbidden Street/Britannia Mews/Affairs of Adelaide) if it were to come out on DVD. This is the first time I have commented on a movie in such a way.