Tuchergson Truly the worst movie I've ever seen in a theater

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

boblipton Roy Boulting's drama reminded me of the Archer's HOUR OF GLORY, about the work of bomb disposal during the war, released a couple of years earlier. Like that drama, there's nothing glamorous or flag-waving about it. The war may have grown cold and it may now be about Communist cells and politicians happy to use explosions that kill dockworkers for their own political advantage, but it has the same dirty and unhappy feeling about it.Cinematographer Gilbert Taylor abets this gloomy and paranoid atmosphere with stark British noir lighting. The sets are cramped and crowded, and starkly lit from the side and overhead, to offer dramatic shapes, but never let you look anyone in the eye. The actors are all good: no stars of the era, but performers you would recognize, familiar faces..... so that the audience members would say don't I know him? He couldn't be a bad 'un.... but in Boulting's nasty world, the best can turn out to be the worst, and the only salvation lies in the fact that there is yet some decency among the unregarded.Well, that last pious wish was because he was working among other big-name behind-the-screen talent and money men. Soon enough he would reunite with his twin brother John and they would turn out some movies where only fools were decent.

clanciai This film is extremely cleverly made up. No one knows anything in the beginning, and the actors and audience alike are left in complete ignorance of what is going on and like the police only left with a few loose ends leading nowhere, until at last Mr Ward is caught in a picture, which provides the key to untangling the extremely comprehensive plot with its circle of saboteurs.Another key is the tutorial institute, and some of the finest scenes are from there. for instance when the inspector has to attend a music performance of thoroughly modern music not sounding very well, and you can see how he suffers, while the others pretend to understand the meaning of this abstract katzenjammer.Kenneth Griffith makes an unforgettable performance as the martyr of the intrigue, getting caught up in a web he can't extricate himself from and still making something of the hero of the drama - without him the police would never have arrived in time.Another striking performance is Anthony Nicholls as the MP making a thoroughly charming and cultivated presence with great villainy hidden beneath. His final conversation with the commodore is the top of the film with the lights efficiently going out...Notable is also Joan Hickson as the mother, playing a much more convincing and heart-rending role than her later better known ones as Miss Marple.Another vital part is Mary Morris as Anna Braun, irresistibly beautiful like an impressing viper full of venom whom you just must be paralyzed by for fascination until she stings...But the film is full of such characters. You can never imagine that Stringer is not actually played by a Russian, his accent is so perfectly Russian, and the music adds to it as well, especially at the tutorial college with its concerts as the perfect smokescreen for a truly devilish coven - the film reminds not a little of Hitchcock's "Sabotage" in its recklessly cruel set-up.

malcolmgsw This is a film which I can never remember seeing on TV.Unfortunately it seems as relevant today as when it was made as there have been terrorist campaigns since and sadly at this present time.However what is so ironic about this film is that people were lead ,wrongly to believe,that the security services were on top of the situation,whereas Burgess,MacLean and Ogilvy were happily giving secrets away to the Soviets.Of course they couldn't be guilty,they went to Oxbridge.The film is extremely well written and directed.

XhcnoirX After a big explosion in the London Docks, Scotland Yard and MI5 join forces to find the ones responsible. Meanwhile the bombers, a group of communists, set their eyes on a much larger target, several power stations around the country, including London's Battersea power station. The group have enlisted a weakling shop seller as one of their helpers, but he slowly starts to crumble and fall apart. Meanwhile the investigators go over each lead and are slowly able to identify members of the group. But they don't know when the next attack will be or where.A Cold War thriller that starts with a bang and ends with a big finale inside Battersea power station. By shifting the focus back and forth between the investigators and the Communist group (which is never mentioned directly, but strongly implied), including the moments where their paths cross, the movie maintains tension and suspense. The cast isn't too well-known but contains a ton of familiar British character actors, from the lead detectives, Liam Redmond ('Night of the Demon') and André Morell ('The Bridge on the River Kwai') to the leader of the group, John Bailey ('Never Let Go') to Geoffrey Keen (Sir Frederick Gray in half a dozen James Bond movies) and so on.Directed and co-written by Roy Boulting, one half of the Boulting brothers ('Brighton Rock', 'Seven Days to Noon'), and with future acclaimed cinematographer Gilbert Taylor behind the camera ('Star Wars', 'Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'), this movie is expertly made. It's got a nice pace to it, and by mixing interior studio sets and exterior on-location shots in London, as well as inside Battersea power station, the movie also looks pretty nice. It's not a classic by any means, but hard to go wrong with this one.