Robert Hamer's 1947 It Always Rains on Sunday was virtually the definitive British film noir, and set its downbeat narrative in the London suburb of Bethnal Green. Nearly twenty years later a novel titled just Bethnal Green showed that things hadn't improved much in the East End. This adaptation-shot on location-does at least have a nominally optimistic ending (including a scene patently stolen from The Grapes of Wrath). John Slater, a B.G. inhabitant in the 1947 film, is back again, a little greyer but far sleazier. --WKE The Story: Michael Sarne, a young British pop singer, portrays Ricky, the film's agonized hero. Amid knife fights, petty crimes, and binges at the local tavern, Ricky tries to overcome the travails of youth. In her third screen role, the first being A Taste of Honey, Rita Tushingham brings a saucy charm to her role as Ricky's self-possessed girlfriend.