The Small Back Room

Brooding and tense will be won't be succumb to his alcoholism, will be won't he get the girl, will he won't be be a hero. Plenty of big names in their early days. Well worth watching

dry no fun. Both the writers and actors appears not enjoying in this dull movie.

The dream sequence is as great as everyone says but everything else from the subtle character drama and the stressful bomb defusing sequence is the real reason to watch.

After their run of amazing classics (including Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, I Know Where I'm Going! and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp) throughout the 1940's, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger retreated to this darker almost noir look at a man struggling with himself, disability, and drink. David Farrar (who played Mr. Dean in Black Narcissus) stars as the wartime scientist who has lost his foot and struggles with pain and the need for whisky to stop it. He is loved by his office's main secretary (Kathleen Byron, the mad nun also from Black Narcissus) but he doubts that he is the right man for her (she doesn't). The script is intelligent and adult, dealing with these real issues as well as a plot that looks squarely at office politics in the context of a military decision to adopt a new gun. Powell and Pressburger never dumb things down for the audience. Farrar is finally tested when he has to defuse a German booby trap on a pebbly beach after a night of heavy drinking (that includes a surreal nightmare sequence) in a tense 17 minute sequence that decides his fate. A bit more grim and less magical than the Archers' best but still strong.

While the Archers are known best for their larger-than-life, Technicolor fantasies, "The Small Back Room" serves, in many ways, as almost an antithesis to their most recognizable aesthetic traits--it's in black and white rather than Technicolor, claustrophobically internal rather than external, with even a title that betrays a different kind of a film, and a 17-minute climactic sequence (coming right on the heels of the central ballet in "The Red Shoes") that's nothing more than a man, a beach, and a bomb. Still, though this is a darker, quieter, more somber and sardonic piece of work than usual for the Archers, "The Small Back Room" stands alongside Powell and Pressburger's many great works as an anguished psychological wartime drama conceived and executed with characteristic cinematic passion and panache and performed to perfection by an impeccable cast.

Yeah, not up to their finest but still fascinating-- especially the WWII atmosphere. That shot with the hats over the lunch tables was delicious P&P! So many great little touches like that. Nerdily pleased to see so much Gill Sans on the posters around the office. Note that the two musical sequences feature a theremin.

Starting to watch it now, but a different title. It was an intense drama dealing with explosives and addiction.

Way before "The Hurt Locker" this Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger ("The Archers") film about British intelligence and bomb experts trying to defuse explosive booby traps dropped by the Germans made for a fascinating and in one sequence riveting story. David Farrar is great as the alcoholic/disabled bomb expert and Kathleen Byron is his devoted girlfriend. Their relationship is very frank considering the time period and film codes. Great support from Jack Hawkins and Michael Gough. A really underrated and neglected film from "The Archers."

There are some genuinely brilliant moments in this Michael Powell film but at times it suffers from the curse of the age in which it was made, that is over dramatic stagey performances and direction. There is a fascinating and well drawn dynamic to the central love interest and the machinations of the back room dealings are insightful and engaging, however a great chunk of the dialogue is spitted out in near hysterics and the scene with the giant whiskey bottle was unintentionally hysterical in quite another sense.

[font=Century Gothic][color=seagreen]"The Small Back Room" is about the problems and work of a weapons researcher in London in the spring of 1943. While battling alcohol because of a crippling injury, he is investigating booby trapped bombs that the Germans are dropping all over England and advising on a new gun. The movie is lacking slightly in plot, but it makes up for it in characterisation, performances and beautiful camerawork. The film's climax and a hallucinatory sequence are definite highlights. I also liked that it is a movie about wartime that is just as much about saving lives and finding a reason to live, as much as anything else.[/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#2e8b57][/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#2e8b57]"The Small Back Room" is written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. They would also collaborate on other interesting movies of the period including "The Red Shoes", "Stairway to Heaven/A Matter of Life and Death", "I Know Where I'm Going" and "Black Narcissus."[/color][/font]