Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger direct David Farrar, Kathleen Byron and Jack Hawkins in this WWII drama where an injured scientist resists alcoholism while trying to solve how to defuse a new booby trapped Nazi bomb.

Made as a small scale, black and white palette cleanser by The Archers after the big arty colourful gambles of A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes. Yet utterly vibrant, intelligent and mature. There are many subplots here that fuse together into two memorable sequences in the second half. Farrar spends a night battling with the bottle after the stress of work grinds him down. We go visually crazy for a minute… turning his staid blackout London flat into a surrealistic nightmare. And the finale sees him out on his own on a beachhead… hungover… and defusing a bomb that killed his colleague. A scene that grips you like a vice. He has nothing left to live for so he could (and maybe should) die. Amazingly acted. Farrar and Byron’s adult romance is tinged with sadness but has a frank heat. Great little movie.

8

Perfect Double Bill: 49th Parallel (1941)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin