Bombsites in The Yellow Balloon (1953)

I have written before about how in 1947's Ealing comedy Hue and Cry celebrated

a damaged London belongs to errand boys and the film celebrates their independence and resourcefulness.

but British films soon came to take a different view of bombsites.

So I was interested to come across this post about one of those films, The Yellow Balloon from 1953, on Best British Films:

The Yellow Balloon can be viewed on a number of levels: as postwar realist drama illustrating the harshness and poverty of London seven or eight years after victory; as a gripping thriller; as commentary upon the dog-eat-dog world simmering beneath the layers of conventionality and people ‘doing the right thing’.

It is probably most helpful to examine The Yellow Balloon from each of these perspectives.  References are made throughout the film to the lack of any action on the part of the authorities to the ongoing devastation of uncleared and unguarded bombsites.

This is a world where victory against the Germans has come at a great price, and rationing was still in force until the following year.  The continuing repayment of war loans to the Americans left little spare cash for renovations, let alone reconstruction.  The "you never had it so good" world of Harold Macmillan was still several years down the road.

I have put the sentence that most interests me in bold and I had better give these bombsite posts their own label so I can find them if I want to write the definitive work on the subject.