No Trees in the Street

The film "No Trees in the Street" (1959) is set in the slums of London before World War II and tells the story of an aimless teenager, Melvyn Hayes as Tommy, who tries to escape his squalid surroundings by entering a life of crime. He falls in with local hoodlum Herbert Lom's grip of fear that holds the rest of the slum citizens, including Tommy's own family, in a state of desperation. The film chronicles Tommy's progression from minor thefts to murder, and ends with Hetty (Sylvia Syms) and Frank (Ronald Howard) seen as married and living in a new council flat long after the slums have been demolished.