Thursday 27 July 2017

Jean Kent: Devil Woman



Whilst watching Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948) last night I informed LJ that I was going to start a Jean Kent fan club. I get these urges to honour artists when it's too late. The last one was Cherry Wainer and I had one other eager member but despite our efforts few others seemed to want to join. Imagine my disappointment at the world's refusal to share our admiration for a woman who played the organ the way she did, sometimes with her dog by her side!


Back to Jean. She has something of the devil about her, not only in her fine performance as rebel Gwen Rawlings in Good Time Girl (1948) but her hat in Sleeping Car to Trieste, which features what look like a couple of horns. I wonder if that was the director's intention? Sorry, no pictures available, so you'll have to watch it to see what I mean. It's on YouTube, as is Good Time Girl, a superb British crime drama which predates the teen panic flicks of the 50s wherein rampant 'beatniks' smoked weed, danced to Rock'n'Roll (or Trad Jazz) and generally threatened to destroy the fabric of Western democracy. As if foreseeing the teenage rampage to come, Good Time Girl is a big warning to kids who might go off the rails or, as Gwen does, have the misfortune to get screwed over by a spiv even though she's no angel herself and...well, no spoilers.

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