Dir: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger | Cast: Jack Hawkins, Kathleen Byron, UK Drama
The director Michael Powell once opined that The Small Back Room was probably his best film, while Emeric Pressburger’s personal favourite was The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp; therefore anyone in any doubt as to the contrasting personalities behind The Archers should go no further than this austere black & white adaptation of Nigel Balchin’s novel which further develops the pair’s preoccupation with the emotional fallout from the national trauma of World War II.
Focusing on the emotional truth of a tortured love story the British noir takes place during 1943 with the Germans dropping explosive booby-traps over Britain. Meanwhile the troubled expert tasked with disarming them fights his own private battle with alcohol. The expressive use of sound was already a Powell characteristic and in the expressionistic sequence depicting delirium tremens combining the ticking of a clock and an enormous whiskey bottle.
The incisive depiction of office politics probably also originated with Balchin (likewise the treatment of physical disability) although one wonders which studio executive was being parodied by Powell in the sequence with the Whitehall ignoramus played by Robert Morley. @RichardChatten
AT THE BFI from 28 May | DIGITAL AND BLURAY/DVD RESTORATION RELEASE ON 3 JUNE 2024 | STUDIOCANAL VINTAGE CLASSICS |