A very odd film, made by Public Relationship Films for the British government's Central Office of Information, designed to counter doom-mongers as Britain's post-war economy in the austerity years failed to excite. We had, said the pessimists, won the war but lost the peace.
Mr A and Mr B wander through the streets and pubs of London totally depressed, before attempting suicide together. Somehow this cheers them up; it is not clear why or how.
Apparently, co-writer Richard Massingham, who also played Mr A, was one of the pessimists, and couldn't see any silver lining in the cloud of Clement Attlee's government. Hence it is unsurprising that the film is one of the least convincing propaganda films ever made. Indeed, in 1949 Edward Keeling MP in the House of Commons commented "I saw a film the other day called "What a Life," on which £9,000 of the taxpayers' money was spent with no return whatever. ... When somebody was asked what was the purpose of this film, his reply was that it was intended to show that things were not as bad as they seemed. I rather think that the Lord President himself saw that film, and I should like to ask him whether he thinks that film was worth £9,000 of the taxpayers' money."
