Counterblast

Nazi doctor Mervyn Johns has escaped from Allied arrest. He murders an English scientist who is about to take over a new position where no one knows him and takes his place. He's working on a vaccine afainst germ warfare, with assistants Nova Pilbeam and Robert Beatty. They think it's humanitarian work. He plans to use it to conquer the world.

It's a rather fanciful thriller, mostly interesting for being Nova Pilbeam's last screen appearance, and for Johns being cast so strongly against type. He was expert at playing small, ground-down men in more than seventy movies, it's sometimes hard to realize that he wasn't what he appeared to be on screen. He was a fine actor, and, given the chance to play this sort of character, did so very well.

As for Miss Pilbeam, her fourteen-year career as a child actor and ingenue were ending at age 29. It seems rather young to retire, but she had had a busy and rather distinguished career. Her second marriage was beginning, and she retired to a thoroughly private life. She died in 2015, age 95.

If you were an escaped Nazi criminal on the run in England, what would you do? Go deep underground? Try and Swim the channel? Or murder an emigrating scientist, take over his laboratory, and continue the unholy germ warfare experiments that you were doing back there during the war whilst pretending to be British and restraining yourself from screaming "Mein Furher!" As he was sort of brought up in England as a child his British accent is flawless, but the Nazi criminal is such an arrogant, ill-tempered, moaning bastard that he immediately attracts suspicion from everyone around him! It doesn't help that he's got a dead body in a trunk, won't let anyone into his secret germ warfare lab, shouts at the help, and falls in love with the daughter of the murdered scientist friend when he should have probably killed her instead (he was going to!).

Our Nazi scientist also spends a lot of time avoiding a woman who knew the guy he killed, replacing his house staff with suspicious teutonic accented women, and preventing the girl he didn't kill from falling in love with his assistant (who's is highly suspicious mainly due to a set of golf clubs).

This all sounds jolly exciting, but it kind of isn't for the most part. It's hilarious watching this guy barely restraining his Nazi tendencies (he even 'puts down' a German for decrying the Third Reich!) whilst trying to be a jovial Englishman, but a lot of this drags a bit, especially the ironic ending, which surely would have had many a surviving Jewish person saying "Er...too soon." Still....etc.

The version I watched was from the DVD 50 movie boxset from Mill Creek called Nightmare Worlds, disk 3 side A.

A German scientist Dr. Bruckner - the Beast of Ravensbruck (Mervyn Johns) working on bacteria and immunology escapes Gillington P. O. W. Camp at the end of the second world war. With the help of what should have been called The Odessa File (1974), he gets to usurp the identity of an Australian scientist Dr. Richard Forrester (Anthony Eustrel.)

Luckily, Dr. Bruckner learned to speak English (supposed no accent) as a child. He does not sound Aussy to me, maybe Welsh. Talk about weird, if you have your head bashed in why add to it an obscure poison. Looks line Forrester has been truncated.

I am afraid we have to listen to background music (if you can call it that) constantly. With a few breaks

Now the story begins. As our Dr. Richard Forrester (now Mervyn Johns) seems a little strange. Golf clubs but never golfs. And lots of other enigmas. Looks like Dr. Forrester has to have heart; that is Tracy Hart (Nova Pilbeam) as a willing assistant.

On the side they dance the Paul Jones. The meaning of PAUL JONES is a method of changing partners during a dance whereby at a signal the dancers form a circle and execute a grand right and left until at another signal each man resumes the original dance taking as his new partner the lady who is opposite him. See this again in the movie Green for Danger (1946). Watching the Paul Jones in Counterblast, you will see a scarry encounter.

The plot thickens. Someone may be looking in his trunk. Or worse.

Will the Beast of Ravensbruck succeed and deliver to the cabal or is it curtains with a gas-tronomic surprise.

Over half a century before COVID-19 and still relevant.

I first became aware of Nova Pilbeam in Hitchcock's "Young & Innocent" with Derrick de Marnay and in "The Man Who Knew Too Much" with Peter Lorre, both filmed in the 30s.Intrigued by her performance in these two films, I sought out this film from 1948.She is older by say 10 years or so and more mature but still attractive and adroitly plays the heroine as in the afore stated films.The other reviewers have covered the basic plot, so I will not risk giving out "spoilers" but confine myself to a few chosen words.Canadian Robert Beatty effectively plays the handsome hero while Nova shows misplaced loyalty to her boss.I noticed Alan Wheatley in the cast as a Nazi dentist (did he ever play a sympathetic role?).I first became aware of him playing the Sheriff of Nottingham in the 1950s ITV children's TV series of "Robin Hood" starring Richard Greene.

My copy was a little bit muddy which I put down to the age of the original print but sound quality was fine.Another cameo of the nursing sister was played by Margareta Scott.She never seemed to get to play the lead.I saw Margareta in two Margaret Lockwood films playing supporting roles: "Girl in the News (1940) and "Quiet Wedding" (1941).

Mervyn Johns of course played the lead role as the bacterial scientist and I agree with a previous reviewer, he played a sort of latter day anti-hero.I also agree that much more tension could have been injected into the plot by the director Stein but of course Hitchcock was firmly established in Hollywood at the time.The result is a slightly above average thriller and I therefore rated it 6/10.

I have to admit that one of my greatest cinematic guilty pleasures is the horror of the Nazi film (unfortunately, certain political trends recently in my neighbour to the south, the United States, make me unfortunately feel that similar ways of thinking have yet to be eradicated). Thankfully, being born as I was in the late 60's, I didn't have to experience such terror firsthand, but it's fascinating to see, through the wonders of cinema, examples of that fascist type of thinking, carried out to its fruition (some of my favourites in this area are quite controversial films, like 'Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom', 'The Night Porter' and 'Dr. Strangelove'). At least in my estimation, I have no idea how I would have acted in either polarity of the situation: either being a German and told to act accordingly, or being a concentration camp inmate. I am simply thankful I didn't have to experience either horrific scenario.

This film was an unexpected pleasure. Though no star power is behind it, or budget to speak of, and though there is suspense and a good script, it could have been a lot better handled, both in terms of direction and cinematography (it has 'British 40's B-picture' written all over it, while it's crying out for a capable helmer such as Sir Carol Reed, Sir Alfred Hitchcock, or The Archers, each of which would have made a minor masterpiece out of it). I am very thankful that it was included in my Mill Creek 'Nightmare Worlds' 50-film pack, or honestly I would have never heard of it. Now my main ambition is to get all of their sets, and see what other cinematic hidden treasures I can discover!