Country: GB
Technical: bw 93m
Director: Roy Boulting
Cast: Liam Redmond, André Morell, Kenneth Griffith, Anthony Bushell, Mary Morris, Joan Hickson
Synopsis:
MI5 and the police foil a communist/anarchist cell that uses a sensitive, idealistic radio engineer to further its sabotage objectives.
Review:
A fascinating drama of what-ifs, this incisive political thriller posits a future in which a renewed crisis brews on the continent (not hard to imagine in the wake of the Berlin air lift). Touted as a sort of sequel to Seven Days to Noon, it shares writer-director Boulting and some of the cast, but that was a London Films Production and this is Rank. However, although it does not quite have the suspense and finesse of that film, it offers dynamic visualisations of a dockyard explosion and a gun battle in Battersea Power Station. The script is lively and not without humour, and has great fun with its chamber music society and tutorial college, fronts for unBritish activity. Anthony Nicholls is the Otto Kruger-style villain, an Etruscan art admirer/political opportunist. No love interest, either; just Dora Bryan who keeps coming in to get her kettle fixed!
Country: GB
Technical: bw 93m
Director: Roy Boulting
Cast: Liam Redmond, André Morell, Kenneth Griffith, Anthony Bushell, Mary Morris, Joan Hickson
Synopsis:
MI5 and the police foil a communist/anarchist cell that uses a sensitive, idealistic radio engineer to further its sabotage objectives.
Review:
A fascinating drama of what-ifs, this incisive political thriller posits a future in which a renewed crisis brews on the continent (not hard to imagine in the wake of the Berlin air lift). Touted as a sort of sequel to Seven Days to Noon, it shares writer-director Boulting and some of the cast, but that was a London Films Production and this is Rank. However, although it does not quite have the suspense and finesse of that film, it offers dynamic visualisations of a dockyard explosion and a gun battle in Battersea Power Station. The script is lively and not without humour, and has great fun with its chamber music society and tutorial college, fronts for unBritish activity. Anthony Nicholls is the Otto Kruger-style villain, an Etruscan art admirer/political opportunist. No love interest, either; just Dora Bryan who keeps coming in to get her kettle fixed!
