The main title actually says 'J. B. Priestley's They Came to a City', and the film constitutes the second of three brief wartime flirtations with fantasy by Ealing Studios.
Coming late in the war when enlightened opinion was already contemplating what was to come next, the ideals it expressed had already found voice in the Boulting Brothers short 'Dawn Guard' and thematically owed a lot to Sutton Vane's 'Outward Bound', James Hilton's 'Lost Horizon' and Priestley's own 1937 fantasy 'I Have Been Here Before'; while the striking production design seems to show the influence of German silent cinema.
Beginning and ending with the genial figure of Mr Priestley ambling on and off, it's not for all tastes, but is certainly quite unlike any other British film before or after.
Coming late in the war when enlightened opinion was already contemplating what was to come next, the ideals it expressed had already found voice in the Boulting Brothers short 'Dawn Guard' and thematically owed a lot to Sutton Vane's 'Outward Bound', James Hilton's 'Lost Horizon' and Priestley's own 1937 fantasy 'I Have Been Here Before'; while the striking production design seems to show the influence of German silent cinema.
Beginning and ending with the genial figure of Mr Priestley ambling on and off, it's not for all tastes, but is certainly quite unlike any other British film before or after.