Haute trahison

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.