SPARROWS CAN'T SING is a kitchen sink comedy drama from the early 1960s, a film I'd never heard of before watching but one which turns out to provide fitting snapshot of the era. James Booth plays a sailor who returns home to find his home demolished (the clearing of the slums plays an important backdrop role here) and his wife Barbara Windsor gone. He proceeds to hunt for her, but this narrative takes a backseat to the various interactions between larger-than-life supporting characters. Much of it is played for laughs, with Windsor only slightly more serious than in her CARRY ON roles and Roy Kinnear providing plenty of chuckles. The supporting cast is quite extraordinary and packed to the brim with familiar faces. Surprisingly enough this was co-written by Stephen Lewis, who has a small role playing a familiar type of character for him.

Some interesting eccentric characterizations makes this version of a short-lived British play slightly entertaining but obnoxious in its characterizations. The story of a returning sailor (James Booth) finding out that his wife Barbara Windsor has shacked up with a another man and is pushing around a baby of unknown fatherhood is unpleasant, and the nosey characters interfering in the situation makes it even more difficult to have any sympathy for anybody here. not only is his wife not where he left her, the place where he left her is not where he left it. it is an interesting look at London's East side in the 1960s, but unless you have an interest in this type of culture, finding interest within this film will be very difficult to maintain.

The nosy characters start with the big apartment building's doorman, a character so vile that he takes glee in seeing visitors cars towed, offering unsolicited advice when it is not wanted, and basically never shutting up. Older nosy neighbors do pretty much the same thing, making unwanted comments as people knock on her neighbor's door, and eventually, it becomes quite tiring to deal with this over and over. reality maybe a slice of life here, but it is not a sweet slice. the location footage is interesting however, but that's not enough to make this into a good movie.

I saw this film when it first came out; it got very bad reviews at the time and most of my friends hated it, but I loved it then and have been haunted by the theme song ever since. For a while it was impossible to find any references to it--in fact, this is the first database where I have found the title or any information about it, though I have checked a number of commercial sites trying to find it on video. I still remember it as a charming (somewhat sentimental) and very funny comedy of a type that the British film industry did very well at that time. More recently their best work is more in a surreal or caricatural mode (such as _Cold Comfort Farm_, which is brilliant in its own way), but _The Full Monty_ caught some of the charm of the kind of comedies of everyday life that I think _Sparrows Can't Sing_ was one of. Now I just wish I could see it again.