Film Reviews by Steve

The best film about the home front in WWII, and one of the greatest social realist films ever made in the UK. It is a tribute to the women who kept industry switched on, and the sacrifices that usually slip under the radar. Patricia Roc plays a shy shopgirl from a working class community, who leaves home to serve in a munitions factory.

She meets people of different classes and intellects, and performs a small task in a larger chain of national importance. She marries an RAF pilot (Gordon Jackson) who dies over Germany. And it becomes apparent that, rather than solely fighting the Nazis, these people are now building a new Britain, which must be a fairer than before the war.

Much of the political idealism is voiced by Eric Portman as the bluff factory foreman. One of film's delights is his growing relationship with a cosseted mannequin (Anne Crawford) ill equipped for manual work. Unexpectedly, the mismatched actors share a potent chemistry which lights up the later scenes. But it's Roc's film and she breaks your heart.

This is an extraordinarily moving tribute to the female factory workers who provided the men at the front with the means to fight. It was commissioned as morale boosting propaganda, but it is more realistic and honest than this suggests. Credit to Launder and Gilliat for understanding the territory. And they give us Charters and Caldicott in uniform too!

British B directors also did their duty on the propaganda front in WWII, armed with newsreel footage and small budgets. Their films were made quickly on limited studio sets, but often there was talent available, working for the cause. Harold French’s film is the best of these, with a good script co-written by Terence Rattigan.

With the war going poorly these films often dwelt on the European resistance. This is set in Norway with Hugh Williams as a dilettante reporter who gets it together to attack German U-boats harboured in the fjords, The familiar story gets stuck in morale boosting rhetoric early on but is dealt a shot of adrenaline at half way as Hugh parachutes back to lead the underground.

Williams is an insipid lead, but there’s a pre-stardom Deborah Kerr, and Ralph Richardson in a conspicuous cameo. British films could always count on a good cast of support actors, and Finlay Currie stands out as tough but paternal sea captain. Francis Sullivan plays yet another sadistic Nazi. The war is in its fourth year, and the screen Germans are now much more ruthless.

Due to budget constraints, most of the action takes place off screen. Curiously, the film ends with a British invasion of Norway that never happened. But maybe this fiction gave the home front more hope than reality could. Today, the strength of the wartime B films is that they betray a feeling of national anxiety. Everything is still to be fought for.

Short and very sentimental musical melodrama which reprised a few popular standards for the home front. A busking violinist (John Warwick) is way down on his luck, but he is given a break by a showbiz promoter (Wilfred Lawson), which leads him to his long lost ex-wife and mother of his son (Ann Todd), who has blown in from America, where she is a successful singer...

So it's schmaltz. It was made by Butcher's Film Service who produced the lowest budget B films, with no obvious expertise, often memorable for murky lighting. Danny Boy wasn't successful with audiences. Halliwell's film guide says it is 'not for the critical'. It was directed by Oswald Mitchell, best known for making Old Mother Riley films! 

But inevitably... and yet. This film has an irresistible poignancy because of the time it was made, with the war going badly and Britain inevitably casting its gaze hopefully to the US and wondering if it would join the fight. The plot draws on this national need. The British are struggling, but with resilience. The rich relation comes back and recognises a common attachment.

In this context, the songs (Danny Boy, Auld Lang Syne) deliver a sweet emotional punch. The casting works today because Ann Todd became a star, and John Warwick isn't much remembered now. But it is he who gives the film heart, with his palpable decency and humility. In spite of its weaknesses (and many appalling jokes) this is surprisingly watchable, and a memo from history.

This landmark political polemic is also one of the great British films about class conflict. The introductory narration describes miners as 'the backbone of nations'. Yet they live in poverty. AJ Cronin's adaptation of his own novel advanced ideas about the future of the UK that would gather momentum over the war years.

Michael Redgrave plays an intelligent child from a northern mining town who can never escape the pull of his roots. This is due to the obstacles the poor must overcome to achieve their potential, and because he believes he must stay to fight for the future of his community. The collieries are owned by wealthy bosses who will sacrifice lives for profits.

Of course, there is a climactic pit disaster with bodies pulled out of the floodwater. Carol Reed stages this brilliantly on the huge studio set. But more impressive is the representation of the people in an era when the working class were rarely more than comic relief in British films. Their poverty is depicted starkly, without condescension.

The film is dominated by Redgrave. He delivers a couple of rousing editorialising speeches that put over Cronin's vision with punchy eloquence. But the whole cast creates a plausible impression of a resilient, suffering people. Reed's first great film captured an emerging national mood and was a huge success with the public.

Critics usually prefer this earlier adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's stage play to the MGM remake... and they are right! George Cukor's version has Hollywood stars and a larger budget, but the original is still a handsome production, with a deep period atmosphere. And its actors are well chosen. Anton Walbrook pulls off the trick of being repellent, without being unwatchable.

Walbrook schemes to drive his delicate, unstable wife (Diana Wynyard) into a mental hospital by creating an alternate and frightening reality which always undermines her expectations. Yes, by gaslighting her. Meanwhile, he seeks the rubies hidden in their house of shadows which eluded him years before when he murdered an old woman for them.

The action is mostly staged inside the home, but the studio exteriors evoke a pungent Edwardian London of fog and gas lamps, augmented by a rich orchestral score. The film subtly implies the insanity of the husband in how he uses religion to manipulate and frighten. The scene when he has the servants pray before breakfast is brilliantly freakish.

MGM insisted the negative and all copies be destroyed when they bought the rights. Obviously, they didn't succeed! While some themes have dated, it remains a powerful film about domestic abuse. Interesting how the maid is attracted to her employer's viciousness, without having the imagination to realise he might turn it on her. But primarily, it is a suspenseful thriller. 

With Alfred Hitchcock recently gone to Hollywood, Michael Powell shot a comedy-thriller in the master's style. The MacGuffin loosely draws on the war. A Danish merchant seaman (Conrad Veidt) is hauled into port to have his cargo inspected by customs. Then he follows his wilful, enigmatic passenger (Valerie Hobson) into a London full of German spies.

Naturally, she is working undercover for the British. And after they have worn each other out by squabbling, they fall in love. Veidt and Hobson were re-united following their 1939 hit, The Spy in Black. Veidt is a convincing sea captain, but not so much a romantic lead. Hobson is more comfortable with the romcom froth. Including a startling bondage scene.

The episodic spy story is a means to get the stars from one mysterious cliffhanger to another while they get to know each other over the long dark night. The comedy works better than the suspense, with the typically terse, tight lipped exchanges of the period. It is set in a blackout in the London fog which gives the film plenty of noirish atmosphere.

Hay Petrie is a bonus in a dual role as a sailor/restaurant owner. This is not as good as The Spy in Black, or Hitchcock's similar WWII espionage films. But the stars have a comic rapport, even if not credible as lovers. It looks like it was made quickly on a small budget, but it was a funny and entertaining diversion from the realities of the home front.

One of the best loved British films of the forties, and a classic train thriller. In the last days of peace before WWII, songwriter/spy Rex Harrison must rescue a brilliant Czech metallurgist from the Nazis, while sparring with his attractive daughter (Margaret Lockwood), as they escape to freedom on the German rail network.

This is a sort of sequel to Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938), because it features the popular Englishmen abroad, Charters and Caldicott (Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne), who are in great form, and rather touchingly still catching trains through middle Europe with the continent about to go up in flames.

And both films are comedy thrillers written by Launder and Gilliat. The similarities between the two films emphasise that Carol Reed isn't quite the equal of Hitch, at least in this genre. But then, who is? It is still a fabulous entertainment with some classic lines and a drop dead climax on the last cable car into Switzerland.

How helpful of the Nazis to employ such a duffer as ticket collector on a crucial thoroughfare to freedom! Perhaps it's personal preference, but arguably Rex is a little too pleased with himself to be sympathetic. But the film sends that up. And it's a shock to see Paul Henreid in the Gestapo... But these are quibbles! This is the great British spy thriller of the war years.

Lengthy but exciting update of Leslie Howard's classic The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) to prewar Germany. He plays Horatio Smith, who anonymously rescues scientists and intellectuals from concentration camps while posing as a dusty professor of archeology. The star's alter-ego actually owes quite a bit to his performance as Henry Higgins in Pygmalion (1938).

The film establishes how the Nazis would portrayed during the war years: bureaucratic, uncultured, humourless and sadistic. And stupid. Of course, the British might not be militaristic, but they have wit and fair play on their side. At times it feels like the Brits plan to triumph through charming self deprecation.

It is surprisingly elitist. Smith's aim isn't actually to defend democracy, but save the great men who create history. Yes, the ubermensch. But the film does work as propaganda. Smith is the personification of presumed British values and culture and he continually bests the blundering Gestapo, while dropping quotes from Shakespeare and Rupert Brooke.

It is a patriotic thriller. Howard gives a fine performance, and becomes a mythic figure of justice towards the end of the film, cloaked in shadows, firing off rounds of sweet sounding rhetoric. It was a morale booster made at a time when the war wasn't going well. And it mysteriously captures an aura of anxiety, and of jeopardy.

Classy spy thriller set in the Orkneys during WWI, but released with UK on the precipice of another war. It would be a while until we again saw a good German on a British screen. Conrad Veidt plays a U-boat skipper sent to the Scottish isles to plan an attack on British warships, in cahoots with a phoney schoolmistress (Valerie Hobson).

This is espionage, so people are not always what they seem, but the captain is portrayed as a sensitive, educated and capable professional. The best part of the film is the developing relationship between the two stars as they plot in a remote, windswept schoolhouse. After the cast embarks for a shoot out at sea, it becomes less exciting, though there is a final ironic twist.

Veidt is an imposing presence, but the screen is dominated by the imperious, elegant Hobson. There are themes which were inescapable in the coming WWII films, such as the dangers of careless talk or trusting strangers. There is shadowy coastal photography and a tense orchestral score (by Miklós Rózsa), which bring the atmosphere.

The film is significant as the first collaboration between Michael Powell, and its co-scriptwriter Emeric Pressburger, which sparked a decade of some of the greatest films ever made. It's an improvement from Powell's earlier work; uneven, but intelligent and witty. The trace of Hitchcock doesn't obscure the duo's own unique signature.

Cheerful spy comedy which matched up theatre stars Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier. But this isn't an acting masterclass. It's fast talking hijinks with Ralph as the ebullient secret service officer and Larry as the waspish, moody test pilot who snap laconic witticisms at each other in cut glass accents.

These government agents are so posh, Valerie Hobson is able to pass as a tea lady. The lower orders are mostly represented by a superb comedy butler. It is very funny, in a British screwball style. The plot is perfunctory, with mysterious spies stealing hi-tech planes, and the three stars out to track them down, climaxing with a punch up at sea.

The crisp wisecracks and Richardson's comic aplomb are the main attractions. Apparently his undercover fixer from the ministry in a bowler hat was the model for Stead in The Avengers. Olivier is disengaged, but Hobson brings a lot of elegant fizz as a proto-Sloane Ranger/reporter who pugnaciously spars with Larry before deciding to marry him.

This is one of the pre-WWII thrillers that hint at the coming hostilities, but don't yet name the enemy. Though the baddies have pretty thick German accents. Still, with hostilities are only weeks away, it doesn't take itself at all seriously. This is end-of-the-pier frivolity. At least the British sense of humour was in good shape and ready to go.

Though this is promoted as a Will Hay vehicle, it is really a showcase for the special synergy of the comic ensemble he formed with Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt. There is barely a moment when the trio are not on screen together, engaged in inspired, screwy, petty squabbling.

Sidney Gilliat's story is standard, but durable. The threesome are policemen in a sleepy coastal village. Head office plans to close their station due to lack of crime, so the hapless bobbies start a smuggling racket to give themselves something to investigate. This brings the coppers into conflict with real smugglers who operate a ghostly headless horseman to keep away the curious...

What is remarkable though, even for a peak Will Hay film, is how many gags the writers cram into every minute of screen time. That's Marriott Edgar and Val Guest. It never flags. Even the inevitable extended chase sequence at the climax of the film is better than usual, and recalls the slapstick of the silent era.

It's the Will Hay formula in a different hat. But the trio burn through so much hilarious foolery. They are like grotesque, fearful children, out of their depth in the ordinary world. Not even all that admirable; Will Hay's persona is one of the great connivers. Another film and Hay would leave Marriott and Moffatt to fight screen Nazis. But without getting close to this quality.

This unique combination of oddball comedy, football and whodunit adds up to one of the great British cult films. After an extended action sequence on the field at Highbury where one of visiting players is murdered, we are introduced to the inspector (Leslie Banks) who is training his officers for a drag show.

So policemen in tutus becomes a recurring feature. Banks is (in my opinion) often quite a grey presence in early British films, but here he is a revelation as a strange, quirky flamboyance freely escapes his buttoned up exterior. There is a trace of camp, but not enough to dominate.

The film is more surreal, with the actual legendary Arsenal side of the '30s up against a team of proper actors speaking their inhibited pre-war received pronunciation. One of them is a killer, and the chief suspect is played by an unrecognisably handsome Brian Worth! Yes, a very young Foggy Dewhurst. The performances are comically stiff, by design.

The mystery is fine. The football setting is offbeat. The pantomime humour is a riot. The film is a testament to that strand of eccentricity often present in British comedy. And the breezy brass band soundtrack just enhances this feeling of oddness. There is an impression of the director throwing everything at the screen. And it all sticks. 

Atmospheric and gripping adaptation of Richard Llewellyn's debut play about a flood of poison pen letters which deliver scandal and then tragedy to a sleepy village. It's one of those classic English communities of the thirties, set in the pub, church and post office, where all classes are represented and everyone knows their station.

And the very engrossing mystery is, who is writing these letters? Flora Robson is excellent as a lonely spinster and pillar of the community. Ann Todd is incredibly posh as the young gal about to be married whose plans are threatened by lies. Among the familiar support cast, only Robert Newton as an incredibly dumb yokel fails to score.

With war imminent, it would be a few years before we would see the English presented as pessimistically as this. The villagers quickly become a vengeful mob, which leads to suicide in a bell tower. Despite the standard rat-a-tat of deadpan humour, this is a dark picture, all the way down to the sombre, ingenious resolution.

Llewellyn's premise was stolen in 1943 for Le Corbeau, by the French Hitchcock, Henri-Georges Clouzot. While Paul Stein wasn't an acclaimed auteur and mostly directed quota quickies, I actually prefer Poison Pen. It moves faster. There's a splendid ensemble of character actors. But most of all, Flora Robson brings unexpected psychological depth.

Ultra-sentimental melodrama set among the buskers who live off London's theatre district in the depression. The film opens with a montage of the West End and a soundtrack that can't help drifting into Rhapsody in Blue. It's a Broadway melody, but set in England; a story of the laughter and tears of the the big parade.

Charles Laughton is a middle aged veteran of the colourful slums who falls in love with Vivien Leigh, a skinny teenage waif he meets while she lifts Rex Harrison's cigarette case. They form a street act, until she makes it on the legitimate stage and leaves him behind to the bottle. It's shamelessly corny and Laughton overacts without impediment (he co-produced).

At times, his performance feels like a rehearsal for the hunchback. The film ends with him reciting 'If' to an indifferent theatre audience, and we blink away a tear... And yet, it is fabulously entertaining. Laughton and Leigh have tremendous rapport and while they play to the very back row, it's easy to get swept up in their chutzpah.

There are flavourful sets and lots of low-rent atmosphere as the street performers get squeezed out by the gentrification of the West End. The glorious lack of realism is its chief merit. All is comedy or tragedy in life's great pageant. It's an irresistible, though rather rich indulgence.

British comedy in the thirties was dominated by acts who progressed from the music hall to the big screen. And Will Hay made this transition better than anyone. His trademark was the officious incompetent who takes charge and spreads calamity while blaming everyone else. He was the boss of this archetype.

In Oh, Mr. Porter he is a station master sent to Northern Ireland so he would at least cause mayhem as far away from head office as possible. There he finds the station under the wily local rules of Hay's usual sidekicks, Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt. The best, funniest aspect of the film is the three comedians riffing off each other.

There are many great gags in this inspired bickering (Val Guest was among the writers). As so often with comedy films, the laughs thin out when the plot gets going. And this wouldn't be the first (or last) film where stories of a haunting are spread to hide the activities of a criminal gang. But the fight and chase sequences are more imaginative than most.

Hay was the finest pre-war comedy actor in British films and Moore Marriott a brilliant foil, who gets too little recognition. Neither quite reached the same heights in other partnerships. Oh, Mr. Porter is their masterpiece, and among the greatest ever British comedies.