The "chain" of the title is a property chain comprising seven households, all moving house on the same day, from one district of London to another. It tells the story of each household and the reasons why they are moving, and also features some of the removal company employees who assist them. It opens with a clergyman preaching a radio sermon on the seven deadly sins, and the idea is that at least one member of each of the households is guilty of one of these sins, but this theme is never applied very consistently. Nigel Hawthorne's miserly, penny-pinching Mr. Thorn is a fine exemplar of avarice, and the family moving from upmarket Holland Park to even more upper class Knightsbridge an equally fine one of pride. (Even when they arrive in Knightsbridge, their materfamilias tries to pretend that they live in the even ritzier district of Belgravia). Some of the other sins, however, are not dealt with as fully. Nobody, for example, is actually guilty of gluttony in the literal sense, even if one character is described as a "glutton for punishment".
The film was made while Margaret Thatcher was in power. Films about "Thatcher's Britain" often concentrated upon industrial strife or the plight of the unemployed, but this one deals with some other aspects of the period. The government placed great importance upon social mobility and upon creating what they called a "property-owning democracy", and something of this is reflected in the film. The chain begins in working-class Hackney, with a young man moving out of his mother's home into his first rented flat, and ending up in Knightsbridge. Along the way we meet a young couple leaving rented accommodation for their first home of their own (with the aid of a £29,000 mortgage, a substantial financial commitment in 1984) and several families who are moving to a more upmarket area or from a smaller property to a larger one. The film also reflects London's growing ethnic diversity, with Afro-Caribbean, Asian and Greek Cypriot characters.
It was not just individuals who could move up the social ladder; whole districts could do the same. At one time few people would have moved between Hammersmith, once one of the poorer districts of West London, and the upper-middle-class heights of Hampstead, as the Thorns do here, but the eighties gentrification of the Hammersmith/Fulham area made such a move quite plausible. An unexpected plot twist at the end brings the story back full circle to where it began in Hackney.
The film stars some major names from the British acting profession of this period; perhaps the most memorable performances come from Hawthorne, Billie Whitelaw as the grieving widow Mrs. Andreos, Leo McKern as the elderly millionaire Thomas Jackson and Maurice Denham as the irascible old grandfather, forever trying the patience of his long-suffering daughter and son-in-law. (Rather surprisingly, in the catalogue of deadly sins he represents envy rather than wrath). There are also good contributions from Warren Mitchell as the philosophy-reading removal man, Bamber, and from Bernard Hill as his more earthy colleague Nick. (Bamber's nickname, a reference to his vast store of general knowledge, derives from the television quiz-show host Bamber Gascoigne).
The script was one of the few written for the cinema by the late Jack Rosenthal, best remembered as a television playwright, and displays Rosenthal's normal combination of wit with powers of social observation and psychological insight. Although "The Chain" is normally described as a comedy, and although it does indeed contain a good deal of humour, it also has its more serious side, particularly in the story lines involving Mrs Andreos and Jackson when it becomes a "moving story" in both senses of the word.
The British film industry, which seemed moribund for much of the 1970s, saw a remarkable resurgence in the 1980s. Some of the fine movies produced during this revival, such as the Oscar-winners "Chariots of Fire" and "Gandhi" are now regarded as classics, but others have been largely forgotten. "The Chain" is a case in point; I saw it when it was first released in the cinema in 1984 and again on television in the nineties, when it was shown to publicise the ITV spin-off series, "Moving Story", but since then it appeared to vanish from sight before resurfacing recently on the "London Live" TV channel. Perhaps it is overdue for a revival. 8/10
The film was made while Margaret Thatcher was in power. Films about "Thatcher's Britain" often concentrated upon industrial strife or the plight of the unemployed, but this one deals with some other aspects of the period. The government placed great importance upon social mobility and upon creating what they called a "property-owning democracy", and something of this is reflected in the film. The chain begins in working-class Hackney, with a young man moving out of his mother's home into his first rented flat, and ending up in Knightsbridge. Along the way we meet a young couple leaving rented accommodation for their first home of their own (with the aid of a £29,000 mortgage, a substantial financial commitment in 1984) and several families who are moving to a more upmarket area or from a smaller property to a larger one. The film also reflects London's growing ethnic diversity, with Afro-Caribbean, Asian and Greek Cypriot characters.
It was not just individuals who could move up the social ladder; whole districts could do the same. At one time few people would have moved between Hammersmith, once one of the poorer districts of West London, and the upper-middle-class heights of Hampstead, as the Thorns do here, but the eighties gentrification of the Hammersmith/Fulham area made such a move quite plausible. An unexpected plot twist at the end brings the story back full circle to where it began in Hackney.
The film stars some major names from the British acting profession of this period; perhaps the most memorable performances come from Hawthorne, Billie Whitelaw as the grieving widow Mrs. Andreos, Leo McKern as the elderly millionaire Thomas Jackson and Maurice Denham as the irascible old grandfather, forever trying the patience of his long-suffering daughter and son-in-law. (Rather surprisingly, in the catalogue of deadly sins he represents envy rather than wrath). There are also good contributions from Warren Mitchell as the philosophy-reading removal man, Bamber, and from Bernard Hill as his more earthy colleague Nick. (Bamber's nickname, a reference to his vast store of general knowledge, derives from the television quiz-show host Bamber Gascoigne).
The script was one of the few written for the cinema by the late Jack Rosenthal, best remembered as a television playwright, and displays Rosenthal's normal combination of wit with powers of social observation and psychological insight. Although "The Chain" is normally described as a comedy, and although it does indeed contain a good deal of humour, it also has its more serious side, particularly in the story lines involving Mrs Andreos and Jackson when it becomes a "moving story" in both senses of the word.
The British film industry, which seemed moribund for much of the 1970s, saw a remarkable resurgence in the 1980s. Some of the fine movies produced during this revival, such as the Oscar-winners "Chariots of Fire" and "Gandhi" are now regarded as classics, but others have been largely forgotten. "The Chain" is a case in point; I saw it when it was first released in the cinema in 1984 and again on television in the nineties, when it was shown to publicise the ITV spin-off series, "Moving Story", but since then it appeared to vanish from sight before resurfacing recently on the "London Live" TV channel. Perhaps it is overdue for a revival. 8/10