If they'd concentrated on the main game with The Small Back Room, The Archers (British producer-writer-director team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) might have made another, memorable addition to their very well known anthology of eminent work, perhaps in the vein of a post WW2 Hurt Locker. But we don't get that; at least not until the final 20 minutes of this sadly unbalanced effort.
Instead of focusing the story on Sammy Rice (David Farrar), a British scientist working with a specialist "back room" team in London as a bomb disposal expert in 1943 and his relationship with the alluring Susan (Kathleen Byron - a huge positive for the movie), we are given something different.
The first 15 minutes of the film are actually seen through the perspective of Captain Dick Stuart (Michael Gough), an interesting supporting character, who then disappears for much of the rest of the film. This sets something of a pattern, as for much of the long second act, instead of concentrating on the physical and mental challenges facing Rice in carrying out his work, we kind of get a sketchy situation comedy-drama involving the whole "back room team" and the demands made upon them, both individually and collectively to succeed in their work. This culminates in an overlong and entirely unneeded near skit, involving a deliberately mis-credited Robert Morley, playing a clueless War Secretary making an observation visit to the facility. Imagine if you will, the above-stated very serious minded Hurt Locker, suddenly going the way of MASH for 15 minutes or so. The tone of the film is turned temporarily upside down.
Tossed into this potpourri, we also bear witness to a really odd test fire of some new cannon shells, adjacent to Stonehenge, of all places. Then, a chaotic high-level meeting (again played for laughs) to evaluate the results of the test fire. We even are treated to 2 characters in the third act having a brief discussion of surfing (of all things). This is the UK in 1944 (by now), when I can't imagine surfing was a number one topic of conversation.
There is some great black and white camera work, courtesy of cinematographer Christopher Challis. Particularly noteworthy are some of the head-spinning images seen during one of Rice's alcoholic binges. The performances, especially those of Farrar and Byron, who display a real sultry chemistry together, almost make watching the rest of this rag tag movie worthwhile. But I for one, found the disproportionate narrative lacking in any overall cohesion to the movie's detriment.
Instead of focusing the story on Sammy Rice (David Farrar), a British scientist working with a specialist "back room" team in London as a bomb disposal expert in 1943 and his relationship with the alluring Susan (Kathleen Byron - a huge positive for the movie), we are given something different.
The first 15 minutes of the film are actually seen through the perspective of Captain Dick Stuart (Michael Gough), an interesting supporting character, who then disappears for much of the rest of the film. This sets something of a pattern, as for much of the long second act, instead of concentrating on the physical and mental challenges facing Rice in carrying out his work, we kind of get a sketchy situation comedy-drama involving the whole "back room team" and the demands made upon them, both individually and collectively to succeed in their work. This culminates in an overlong and entirely unneeded near skit, involving a deliberately mis-credited Robert Morley, playing a clueless War Secretary making an observation visit to the facility. Imagine if you will, the above-stated very serious minded Hurt Locker, suddenly going the way of MASH for 15 minutes or so. The tone of the film is turned temporarily upside down.
Tossed into this potpourri, we also bear witness to a really odd test fire of some new cannon shells, adjacent to Stonehenge, of all places. Then, a chaotic high-level meeting (again played for laughs) to evaluate the results of the test fire. We even are treated to 2 characters in the third act having a brief discussion of surfing (of all things). This is the UK in 1944 (by now), when I can't imagine surfing was a number one topic of conversation.
There is some great black and white camera work, courtesy of cinematographer Christopher Challis. Particularly noteworthy are some of the head-spinning images seen during one of Rice's alcoholic binges. The performances, especially those of Farrar and Byron, who display a real sultry chemistry together, almost make watching the rest of this rag tag movie worthwhile. But I for one, found the disproportionate narrative lacking in any overall cohesion to the movie's detriment.