The Card

Denry Machin, the son of a washerwoman, alters his own mark on an examination paper to get into school, and spends the rest of his life climbing by way of similar small cunning: rent collecting, a dance invitation, a salvage business and finally the mayoralty. The film is not interested in honesty. It is interested in the mechanics of moving up. Denry cheats, but he ruins nobody, and rather than punish him the film uses him to make the rigid class order of English provincial life look ridiculous. The form is light and episodic: each scene is a new scheme, a new rung. The pace depends on the speed of Denry's ideas. The source is Arnold Bennett's novel, set in and around his Five Towns. In America the film was released as The Promoter. Ronald Neame directed. Alec Guinness plays Denry, with Glynis Johns, Valerie Hobson and a young Petula Clark in support. Who it is for: viewers who love British comedy of the Ealing era and Guinness's measured playing. Who it is not for: anyone expecting depth. The film never really puts its hero in trouble, and every episode ends on the same formula.