Pink String and Sealing Wax is a 1945 British drama film directed by Robert Hamer and starring Mervyn Johns. It is based on a play with the same name by Roland Pertwee. It was the first feature film Robert Hamer directed on his own.[2]
The title derives from the practice of pharmacists in the Victorian and Edwardian age of wrapping drugs in a package sealed with pink string and sealing wax to show the package had not been tampered with.
Summary
The story is set in Brighton in 1880. Pharmacist Sutton, a strict, arbitrary father, scolds his son David (Gordon Jackson) for writing love verses instead of seeing to business at the pharmacy. At home, he refuses permission for his older daughter Victoria to train as a professional singer. Sutton then dismisses Peggy, his younger daughter, for her objections to his vivisection of guinea pigs. After supper, David reacts to his dad's tough-as-nails attitude by visiting a local pub. While there, he overhears two women gossiping about the landlord's wife, Pearl, and her liaison with another man. Later, David, feeling tipsy, bumps into Pearl outside and engages her in conversation. By the time he arrives home, he is barely sober enough to prepare for bed.
Later, Victoria and Peggy, forbidden from seeing a popular opera singer's concert, decide to wait outside the stage door. Victoria gains the singer's attention by singing "There's No Place Like Home" (Home! Sweet Home!). The singer invites them to supper and arranges for Victoria to attend an audition at London's Royal College of Music. They collect enough money to pay for Victoria's train fare to London. Her audition is a success. She receives a full scholarship offer, which she accepts against the wishes of her father. Back in Brighton, Pearl visits David at the pharmacy to treat a cut she got from Joe, her husband. David tends to her injury and warns her of tetanus. He discusses the various poisons on the shelf. Pearl steals some of them while he is out of the room fetching her a glass of milk.
Pearl returns to the bar and is told Joe has collapsed drunk upstairs. Pearl cuts Joe's hand with a cut-throat razor while he sleeps. When Pearl eventually plucks up courage to poison him, she is shocked by the ferocity of his death. She locks the door but then bashes on it crying, "Let me in!" Later, a doctor pronounces Joe dead. He suspects death was caused by tetanus from the cut. However, after Joe's burial, a police inspector informs Pearl that her husband's body is to be exhumed for a post mortem. Pearl attempts to avoid suspicion. She visits Mr. Sutton and claims David gave her the poison but said it was to "put Joe off the drink". However, Sutton sees through the ruse and reveals that it was his expert opinion to the police that caused her dead husband's exhumation in the first place. She weeps but gets little sympathy from Sutton. Afterwards, she wanders in a daze to the outer edge of the promenade and throws herself off a cliff.
The film premiered in London on 3 December 1945 at the Tivoli Cinema on The Strand and the Marble Arch Pavilion. The critic in The Times praised Googie Withers and Gordon Jackson for their roles, and concluded that Robert Hamer, "has made, in spite of occasional lapses and longueurs, a promising beginning as a director."[2]
