This 1946 British film is very much in the mould of John Buchan's 39 Steps, filmed in 1936 with the stylish Robert Donat, and as well the Ashenden stories. In all, the heroes had brains and style. This too is fairly exciting but not in the league of the others.
It perhaps is not obvious now but in just-post-war austerity rationed Britain, the Robert Newton character, as too his colleagues, is extremely well and stylishly dressed - the over-coats especially. Only the wealthy, film-stars or a gangster would have dressed like this at that time. Newton too is not simply stiff-upper lipped, he gives the character the full charismatic beans: low-key, cool and brave marks him as a man and a hero apart. Clever, resourceful, undaunted, stylish - this was the last call for the British filmic hero-star. It was the world of Ian Fleming as he would like it to be seen. (Bond on film was never obviously clever - it was the gadget which usually saved him).
From this time onwards, the hero who could out-think, out-drink and out-punch the enemy, and always get the girl, was imported principally from USA. Brits in British productions became reduced to supporting roles. If male, if a goody then slow-witted, loyal and liable to get shot. If baddies, clever but fatally flawed. If female, beautiful and life-long loyal to the hired-in hero. Bond marked a change but was never persuasively intelligent.
This film however has Newton as the brilliant brave Hero. Even Guy Middleton - perennial film drunken waster -gets a makeover in the brain and bravery departments. Like its wartime predecessors - the baddie often played by Raymond Lovell, who seemed to specialise in being something of a pushover though as here. Newton, as all heroes do,gets the girl - here the lovely Muriel Pavlow.
