Pool of London

Basil Dearden's 1951 British film is set in the London docks after the war and follows the crew of a cargo ship. Dan, an American sailor, becomes mixed up in a diamond smuggling scheme; his Jamaican shipmate Johnny meets a woman while seeing the city on his day off. Its historical importance lies there: Johnny, played by Earl Cameron, is among the first leading roles carried by a Black actor in British cinema, and the relationship between the two characters is counted the country's first romance on screen between a Black man and a white woman. Dearden gives it as a situation rather than an issue. The dockside photography has documentary value. The crime line is weaker. Who it's for: viewers interested in British classics and the history of representation. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a tightly built crime story, or troubled by the racist language of the period.