The Silent Playground
Directed byStanley Goulder
Written byStanley Goulder
Produced byGeorge Mills
StarringRoland Curram
Bernard Archard
Jean Anderson
Ellen McIntosh
CinematographyMartin Curtis
Edited byPeter Musgrave
Music byTristram Cary
Production
company
Focus Film Productions
Distributed byBritish Lion (UK)
Release date
  • 31 December 1963 (1963-12-31) (UK)
Running time
75 minutes[1]
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

The Silent Playground is a 1963 British thriller film written and directed by Stanley Goulder.[2][3]

Production

The film was shot on location in 24 days for $75,000 by debut feature director Goulder, who had previously made documentaries.[1][4]

Plot premise

In Greenwich, London, just before Christmas Mavis Nugent (Ellen McIntosh), a young widow, drops her children outside the cinema for Saturday morning pictures so that she can go to work at a local haberdashers'. A man approaches the cinema queue and gives out handfuls of what the children take to be sweets. At the end of the film showing the cinema staff find several of the children unconscious with barbiturate poisoning. A police investigation begins, led by Inspector Duffy (Bernard Archard.) After one of the children blacks out in the street later a friend of his shows the police two types of capsules. At the hospital Dr Green (Desmond Llewelyn) and the nurses fight to save the children.

After his mother realises that her adult son does not have all of the mental health medication that had been dispensed to him that morning, the hunt shifts to a nervous and vulnerable hospital outpatient, Simon Lacey (Roland Curram), who has been unwittingly handing out the pills. The police are able to apprehend him, but not before he has thrown away the rest of the drugs in a playground where children are playing. Meanwhile police search for Mrs Nugent and her three children.

Cast

  • Bernard Archard as Insp. Duffy
  • Jean Anderson as Mrs. Lacey
  • Roland Curram as Simon Lacey
  • Ellen McIntosh as Mavis Nugent
  • John Ronane as Alan
  • Desmond Llewelyn as Dr. Green
  • Rowena Gregory as Jane Wilson
  • Basil Beale as Sgt. Clark
  • Cheryl Molineaux as Ruby
  • Michael Byrne as Roger
  • Malya Nappi as Mrs. Rosati
  • Margaret Flint as Mrs. Fairgrove (as Maggie Flint)
  • Mollie Maureen as Mrs. McCarthy
  • Gretchen Franklin as Mrs. Elgin
  • Barbara Miller as Mrs. Heatherley
  • Christine Ozanne as Mrs. Briggs
  • Anna Turner as Mrs. Ward
  • Rickford Harris as Johnny
  • Aileen Harte as Mrs. Nesbitt
  • Donald Tandy as Hospital porter
  • Anthony Marshall as Infirmary child
  • Margaret Durnell as Matron
  • Victor Charrington as Sgt. in sub-station
  • J. Mark Roberts as P.C. in sub-station
  • Peter Wells as Ted
  • Joe Wadham as Duffy's driver
  • Edward Dentith as Cinema manager

Reception

It was a commercial disappointment.[5]

Critical

Variety wrote that "this is quality production...[Goulder's] screenplay is taut, economic and natural in dialog and his direction is unfussy and alert."[1] and TV Guide wrote that "The story never panders to its more sensational elements but is, instead, an intelligent and sensitive thriller".[6]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "The Silent Playground". Variety. 1 January 1964.
  2. ↑ "Watch The Silent Playground". BFI Player. Archived from the original on 16 May 2020.
  3. ↑ "The Silent Playground (1964)". BFI. Archived from the original on 29 April 2018.
  4. ↑ "Stanley Goulder". BFI. Archived from the original on 11 February 2019.
  5. ↑ Petrie, Duncan James (2017). "Bryanston Films : An Experiment in Cooperative Independent Production and Distribution" (PDF). Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television: 12. ISSN 1465-3451.
  6. ↑ "The Silent Playground | TV Guide". TVGuide.com.


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