AN INSPECTOR CALLS

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

I’m a sucker for classic British films: black-and-white dramas from the ’40s and ’50s, with top-notch actors, sharp directors, and often a thorny moral dilemma.

One such gem, “An Inspector Calls” (1954), is based on the play by J.B. Priestley, and stars Alastair Sim (of Scrooge fame) as an otherworldly examiner of conscience.

You can stream it for free on Internet Archive or the Kanopy feature of your LA Public Library card.

The credits roll over a sumptuously laid dinner table. The Birling family is celebrating the engagement of their daughter Sheila to Gerald Croft, an upper-crust scion who is marrying ever-so-slightly down. Not to worry: Arthur Birling, the insufferably smug factory-owning patriarch, is up for a knighthood.

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