Seven Green Bottles (1975)

This docudrama has the look of a public information film to it as we spend a day with half a dozen kids who are bunking off from school and hanging around London’s Shepherd’s Bush area causing mischief. Initially, it’s all petty stuff: pinching oranges and the like. Then, though, they progress to more serious crimes like breaking and entering, car thieving and that’s when the constabulary become more involved. When we follow the youngsters we see them portrayed by actors who rather well capture their sense of boredom coupled with their lack of money. When we shift to the perspective of the authorities, the camerawork becomes more POV and the audience now appear to be the recipients of the varying degrees of reprimand and/or punishment that the well-meaning authorities dole out with an increasing degree of frustration. This latter section of the film also attempts to contextualise their lawless actions by suggesting poverty or family neglect but in the end it’s about a clear message that crime cannot and will not pay.