The End of the Road is a 1954 British second feature ('B') drama film directed by Wolf Rilla and starring Finlay Currie, Duncan Lamont and Naomi Chance. It was written by James Forsyth and Geoffrey Orme, and produced by Group Three Films with funding from the National Film Finance Corporation, and distributed by British Lion.
Contents
Plot
Mick-Mack, a veteran employee at the Jericho Works strongly resists when he has retirement forced upon him by his employers. He says he will retire when he is 90. All he has to show is a small clock as a retirement present which he places on the family mantelpiece. After retirement he takes a job as night watchman at the works. The employers decide that only Mick-Mack can resolve the troubles they are having in the electroplating section. He discovers it is drops of honey, from bees in the roof, which are ruining the process.
Cast
Finlay Currie as Mick MacAulay, old 'Mick-Mack'
Duncan Lamont as Barney
Naomi Chance as Molly
Edward Chapman as works manager
Hilda Fenemore as Madge
George Merritt as timekeeper
Gordon Whiting as young Kennie
David Hannaford as Barney Wee
Eugene Leahy as old worker
Edie Martin as Gloomy Gertie
Pauline Winter as personnel manager
Michael Bird as builder
Anthony Kilshawe as manager
Kenneth Henry as Labour Exchange clerk
Herbert C. Walton as first old man
Claude Bonser as second old man
Sam Kydd as first postal clerk
Hugh Munro as second postal clerk
Bert Simms as crane driver
John Baker as foreman
Ewen Solon as policeman
Edward Malin as nightwatchman
Production
It was made at Beaconsfield Studios with sets designed by the art director Michael Stringer.
Critical reception
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The End of the Road begins as if it were a serious study of old age, and its difficulties when spirit and energy do not diminish with years. The problem is satisfactorily posed; Finlay Currie's dignified and accomplished performance carries off awkward moments such as the improbable scene Mick-Mack makes when he is presented with a retiring gift. The stock working-class husband and wife of Duncant Lamont and Naomi Chance are sufficiently good to support the impression of Mick-Mack's difficulties at home. But after this lengthy and quite satisfactory exposition, the film deteriorates into over-wrought scenes of the old man's wanderings of mind and body; and finally to a wholly artificial solution and a conventional, unlikely happy ending."
In British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 David Quinlan rated the film as "good", writing: "interesting study of the problems of old age."
The film historians Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane note that The End of the Road was "rightly praised" at the time of its release by Kinematograph Weekly as "provocative and purposeful entertainment", and they add that it is "characterised by a real feeling for cramped working-class life and for the gap left when suddenly one is no longer required to be anywhere on a regular basis".