STUDIOCANAL is thrilled to announce a new 2K restoration of Basil Dearden’s POOL OF LONDON, which is to be re-released on DVD and for the first time on Blu-Ray as part of their Vintage Classics collection on Monday 24 October. The new release, which boasts exciting brand new extras including an unseen interview with the legendary Earl Cameron CBE, will be preceded by a very special premiere of the restoration at London's BFI Southbank on Sunday 23 October at which Cameron himself will be present. The ninety-nine-year-old actor will give an in depth career interview as he is also inducted in to the Screen Nation Hall of Fame as one of Britain's First Black British Screen Stars. The special event is part of the BFI’s wider programme Black Star which celebrates Black screen actors.
London’s Docklands, the 1950s: two seamen step ashore from The Dunbar and into the POOL OF LONDON. Dan MacDonald (Bonar Colleano: Dance Hall; The Man Inside) is a self assured and impetuous ladies' man with a sideline in petty smuggling, whilst his friend and shadow, Jamaican Johnny Lambert (Earl Cameron CBE: Sapphire; Thunderball) is rather more shy and restrained. Before their ship again vacates the docks, Dan becomes fatefully involved in a diamond heist and ends up framed for murder and Johnny falls in love with a white girl (Susan Shaw: Train of Events; It Always Rains on Sunday).
Directed by Basil Dearden (The Blue Lamp; Dead of Night), POOL OF LONDON was the first British-made film to depict an interracial relationship in the post-Windrush years. Renée Asherson (The Cure for Love; The Magic Box) and Moira Lister (Another Shore; The Cruel Sea) also star alongside Colleano, Shaw and Cameron CBE, seen here in his acting debut and undoubtedly one of his finest on screen performances.
