An Inspector Calls (1954 film) An Inspector Calls (1954 film) An Inspector Calls is a British 1954 film directed by Guy Hamilton and written for the screen by Desmond Davis. It is based upon the play "An Inspector Calls" by J.B. Priestley. It stars Alastair Sim. Set in 1912, a dinner party held by the upper class Birling family is interrupted by a man calling himself Inspector Poole, investigating the suicide of a lower class girl Eva Smith whose death is linked to each family member. "An Inspector Calls" was filmed at Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, Surrey, England, under the auspices of the Watergate Productions Ltd.
An Inspector Calls Eva Smith may not have been the same person but rather a collective personification of all the different working-class women that the family had exploited, invented by Goole to make the family feel guilty. Yet the final phone call, announcing that a police inspector is shortly to arrive at the Birlings' house to investigate the suicide of a young girl, leaves open the possibility that Eva Smith really did exist after all. Arthur Birling is described as "a heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties", husband of Sybil, and father of Sheila and Eric Birling. He represents the capitalist