A British classic of doomed love, with a bit of Rashômon storytelling

Disappointment and inevitability are given no place on Valentine's Day.

Yet they are the twin undercurrents of romance that often sweep us to unexpected destinations.

Americans might reject their power. In the land of constitutionally prescribed happiness and endless options, no one likes to think he's been led anywhere except by positive thinking and unfettered choice.

Funny, then, that the same betrayed sense of opportunity afflicts so many of us. Sooner or later, married or single, contented or not, we wonder how we got where we are and with whom.

For such moments, "Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky" is a bouquet. Based on the 1930s trilogy by Patrick Hamilton and airing at 5 and 9 p.m. Saturday and 5 and 8 p.m. Sunday on BBC America, it's a dark and tender study in the fruitless pursuit of love.

The three-hour film centers on characters who intersect at a pub called The Midnight Bell: Bob the pub waiter; Ella the barmaid; and Jenny, a prostitute. Told in three parts from their respective points of view, the plot systematically dooms them to rejection.

Doesn't sound like your ambrosia? Well, it always helps to remember the British excel in the fiction (and some say reality) of dashed expectations. Long before we did film noir, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh and other post-World War I English authors were generating rivers of black ink on obsession, betrayal and rejection, on doomed ambition and stifled reaction.

Among them was Hamilton, whose works have enjoyed a revival of late in his native England. Best known here as the author of theatrical smashes that became the films "Gaslight" and "Rope," his novels never got as huge a following in the States.

They are good, and luridly captivating. "Hangover Square" uses a sadomasochistic relationship to indict fascism and "The Gorse Trilogy" is a riveting study of a petty con man. "Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky," originally three books, is now hailed as a little-known classic of English literature.

The BBC production is a lovely, understated take. So very humane is Kevin Elyot's adaptation and so vivid the performances, you're nearly to the end before realizing that this is fundamentally a sad tale that offers no redemption.

Part 1 is presented as Bob's story. In it, Bob (Bryan Dick) pursues and courts — seemingly against her will — the prostitute Jenny (Zoë Tapper).

The relationship goes nowhere and turns sour and familiar as Jenny exploits Bob for his meager savings. But for viewers, the fascination isn't in something as mundane as a plot twist; it's the sheer fatalism with which Bob moves toward a preordained outcome.

That theme is repeated in Part 2, airing at 6 and 10 p.m. Saturday. It's Jenny's turn and here we go to a flashback in which we learn how she became a streetwalker.

Here, Hamilton applies broader strokes to his shadowy canvas. Like many British writers of the 1920s and 1930s, he was interested in the socioeconomic condition of the lower classes and at one time a Marxist.

What saves Jenny from being a symbol and the audience from getting a lecture is Hamilton's deeper fascination with the amoral results of that condition. Jenny already has drifted past the Shavian ideal of a flower-seller and isn't seeking self-improvement.

Nor is Ella, the subject of Sunday night's Part 3. In many ways, she's the character that Hamilton treats most cruelly, because she's offered chances that melt away.

Ultimately, though, Ella emerges as something of a heroine because she retains the right to choose between the loneliness of being by oneself and the loneliness of being with an incompatible, albeit well-heeled, suitor.

That's a bleak-sounding pair of alternatives. It honors Hamilton's vision. His artistic presentation of the demimondaine, not the lure of redemption, makes "Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky" worthwhile.

The BBC film matches this vision. Its silvery, almost black-and-white cinematography evokes Bill Brandt's photos of urban London from this period, leaving director Simon Curtis to draw color from the cast's breathtakingly vital performances.

The unrequited love and nihilism of "Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky" may not be everyone's idea of a pre-Valentine's Day entertainment. Perhaps it should be, if only as a reminder of how we all learn to soldier on.

Kay McFadden: kmcfadden@seattletimes.com