PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Cottage To Let 1941

Cottage To Let is a 1941 British film that was titled Bombsight Stolen over here. It's adapted from a play by Geoffrey Kerr, with a screenplay by Anatole de Grunwald and JOC Orton, the director is Anthony Asquith.

A ditsy country lady has let the cottage on the estate to Alistair Sim. She's also offered it to the military as a hospital. The program to place city kids in safer places has an order to put 20 kids there. They wind up leaving two, one is played by a teenage George Cole in his first role. John Mills plays a British pilot who jumped out of his failing plane and wound up in Lock Tay. He's hurt so they take him to the cottage. He gets one of the rooms and pushes one of the kids out to the manor house. George follows when Alistair shows up with this paid rent receipt.

The daughter of the ditsy lady falls for John, leaving her current suitor out in the cold. The suitor works for her father, he's an eccentric scientist who's currently working on the best bombsight anyone has seen. George is a bit of a Sherlock Holmes fan and he spots that the butler is a planted cop. There's a pack of Nazi spies working to get the bombsight and there are plenty of red herrings making this or that one guilty looking. We do find out who all the scumbags are and a couple of them get some heavy justice laid on them. That was funny. I did like the movies sense of humor and the nice brisk pace. There's a bit of action and a good ending. Nice job from all the cast, especially Alistair, George and John Mills. You can see a copy in the link in the title above.

Friday Night Movies 789

The First Of The Few is a 1942 British film that was called Spitfire in the US. I couldn't find any good poster images for the British title, I had to settle for the one on the left. The original story is by Henry C James and Katherine Strueby, the screenplay is by Miles Malleson and Anatole de Grunwald, the director is Leslie Howard. It was Leslie's last role as an actor, he died the following year, the plane he was in was shot down by the German Luftwaffe.

Leslie is RJ Mitchell, the man who designed the Spitfire fighter plane. He'd been designing planes since the early 20s and they won a lot of speed records. He was first guy to use one wing instead of the two that were popular at the time. The company he worked at didn't agree and he left them. They hired him back later and then they were bought out by a bigger company who wanted Mitchell as their head designer. The head of that company knew that the future needed men like Mitchell.

David Niven plays RJ's test pilot and Rosamund John plays RJ's wife. The trio visit Germany just after Hitler has taken control, the pro-war rhetoric convinces RJ he must build a war plane that's better than anything. He works too hard, gets sick and dies. It's all melodramatic in the movie, it's like he worked himself to death for the sake of the country.

In real life RJ got cancer in 1934, he slowed down some and totally stopped working in 1936, he died the following year. They don't even mention cancer in the film. Still, good work out of Leslie, David and the rest of the cast. I liked most of the film, a little too much melodrama mixed in with scientist working to solve a problem, but I was still glad to see it. I'd prefer a film like The Dam Busters to this.

Berlin Express is a 1948 American film that was partially shot in the ruins of Frankfort and Berlin in 1948. Curt Siodmak wrote the story, Harold Medford wrote the screenplay and Jacques Tourneur directed.

Robert Ryan is an American agricultural expert, Paul Lukas is a German peace activist Dr Bernhardt, Merle Oberon is a French woman who's Bernhardt's secretary, Charles Korvin is a Frenchman, Robert Coote is a British teacher and Roman Toporow is a Russian officer. They all meet on a train from Frankfort to Berlin. Bernhardt is blown up on the train but we find out it's really an agent who was killed, Bernhardt is in disguise. Bernhardt is only safe for a few minutes, he's kidnapped by the Nazi underground after the train arrives in Berlin.

Merle convinces Robert, Charles, Robert and Roman to help her find Bernhardt. They set out to find the guy. We know he's being held by a fanatical brew-master who wants the Reich to rise again. The investigation takes them around the city, there's an incredible amount of rubble and destruction, yet people continue on. A good few of them are still looking backward to the glorious Nazi past that's slipped out of their fingers. You can't be sure who to trust.

It's a bit pseudo-documentary style with a narrator filling us in on what we are seeing. The cast is great, the script is great, the rubble is great. Happy to add this to the small pile of Jacques Tourneur films I would want to watch again.

Millions Like Us 1943

Millions Like Us is a 1943 British propaganda film. The original screenplay is by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, the guys also directed. I like those guys quite a bit so I bought the DVD from Amazon. It appears to be a bootleg of unknown origin but it looks alright. You can see a decent copy on YouTube.

 

The movie starts in 1939 as we meet the Crowson family, they're heading off to the south of England for a seaside holiday in Hastings. There's plenty of interesting footage of  train stations, streets and countryside. When the war breaks out the family helps out with the war effort, dad is in the Home Guard, daughter Phyllis joins the Auxiliary Territorial Service, daughter Celia gets posted to a factory making airplane parts. Everyone has to make due with rationing and other hardships. The German's bomb the area around the factory occasionally and the women have concrete bunkers to hide in, they don't appear that safe, there's a lot of stress. Celia meets a Scottish flight sergeant and they marry. They honeymoon in Hastings, staying at the same B&B that Celia has stayed in since she was a toddler. The town is all sandbagged up and ready for the Nazi invasion from France. The war doesn't go the sergeant's way but Celia carries on at the factory.

Millions Like Us has the fourth and last appearance of Charters and Caldicott, played Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne. They appeared in The Lady Vanishes, Night Train To Munich and Crook's Tour. The two would appear together in other films but as different characters. They add a bit of humor to the hard times. There's some humor as the different classes of citizen rub up against one and other. One of the woman at the factory is pretty posh and she loathes working on a lathe making airplane parts. The foreman is always on her case and they wind up in a relationship.

I enjoyed Millions Like Us and was glad to have added it to my collection. I thought it was worth a look and would recommend it to people who don't mind a war time melodrama. I've seen most of the films by Gilliat and Launder and hardly any of them aren't re-watchable. The Wikipedia says the film was popular in Russia. 

The Goose Steps Out 1942

The Goose Steps Out is a 1942 Will Hay movie. Bernard Miles and Reg Groves had the idea, Angus MacPhail and John Dighton turned that idea into a screenplay, Basil Dearden and Will Hay share the directing credit. Will co-directed three films with Basil, he might have gone onto direct more of his own films but his failing health ended his career. Cancer and a stroke crippled him but he managed to rally and he hung on until 1949.

 

The Goose Steps Out is set during the Second World War. Will is William Potts and he turns out to be the exact double of a German spy. That same spy is in British custody  and the War Office wants Potts to impersonate the spy. He's to travel to Germany and steal info on a new German secret weapon. In Germany Potts is put to work teaching young German spies all about the UK. Charles Hawtrey, William Hartnell, Peter Ustinov and Barry Morse are cast members I knew.

It's a nice slap in the puss to the Fuhrer and there are some other good jokes too. The film was popular at a time that people were pretty down and it still holds up fairly well. I laughed and was glad to have picked up the DVD. I will have a Will Hay film festival someday.