Small Town Story (film)

Small Town Story
Original press ad
Directed byMontgomery Tully
Written byFranz Marischka
Maurice Weissberger
Produced byOtto Kreisler
StarringDonald Houston
Susan Shaw
Alan Wheatley
Kent Walton
CinematographyJo Jago
Edited byGeorge Fisher
Music byEric Spear
Distributed byGeneral Film Distributors
Release date
  • 21 December 1953 (1953-12-21)
Running time
69 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Small Town Story is a 1953 British thriller, directed by Montgomery Tully and starring Donald Houston and Susan Shaw (in a rare bad-girl role). The film is set in the world of association football and features appearances from sporting legend Denis Compton and commentator Raymond Glendenning, as well as players from the Arsenal, Millwall and Hayes football teams. It also features the only screen acting credit of Kent Walton, later to himself become a famous sports commentator.

The film soon disappeared from cinemas and its fate was unknown for several decades. The British Film Institute included it on its "75 Most Wanted" list of missing British feature films[1] due to its perceived interest as a sporting period piece, the involvement of stars of the sporting world at the time, its curiosity value as the only known British black-and-white football-set thriller apart from The Arsenal Stadium Mystery,[citation needed] and increasing interest by film historians in Tully as a director. It has now been found, restored and released on DVD.[2]

  1. ^ "Small Town Story / BFI Most Wanted". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 3 August 2012. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
  2. ^ "Small Town Story: 'lost' football film tells tale of corruption and lure of the big league - video". The Guardian. 4 August 2015. Retrieved 14 February 2016.