The Small Back Room [Hour of Glory] **** (1949, David Farrar, Kathleen Byron, Jack Hawkins, Leslie Banks, Cyril Cusack) – Classic Movie Review 5,502

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1949 British thriller The Small Back Room is an intricate film of the excellent 1943 Nigel Balchin novel about a bitter World War Two bomb expert and his battle to get off the alcohol and back on the rails.

Writer-producer-directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1949 British film thriller The Small Back Room is an intricate and intimate version of the excellent 1943 Nigel Balchin novel about a broken-down, embittered World War Two British bomb expert scientist and his battle to get off the alcohol and back on the rails.

It is a very well crafted, often imaginative film, and the story and characters involve. But, with necessarily dour, downbeat lead performances by David Farrar as wartime ace bomb disposal officer Sam Rice and Kathleen Byron as his girlfriend Susan, it is a muted, sombre, glum, and now dated piece of film-making.

Sam is working with a specialist back room team in wartime London evaluating new weapons. He finds comfort in whisky and pills after being badly injured and is in constant pain from his artificial foot. But, when the Germans drop a new type of explosive booby trapped bombs on Britain in 1943, he finds he has to battle the bottle and test his nerve and resolution to disarm them.

Powell and Pressburger are perhaps not seen quite at their best with such realist material. But it is still a lovingly honed, extremely conscientious piece of work. The best sequence by far is the uber-tense climatic dismantling of the bomb on Portland Bill, bravura work. But the silent film German expressionist-style camerawork illustrating the hero’s battle with the bottle has worn badly, though it might have seemed startling and clever at the time.

Also in the cast are Jack Hawkins, Leslie Banks, Michael Gough, Robert Morley, Cyril Cusack, Anthony Bushell, Renée Asherson, Milton Rosmer, Walter Fitzgerald, Emrys Jones, Michael Goodliffe, Elwyn Brook-Jones, Sam Kydd, Sidney James, Geoffrey Keen, James Dale, Henry Caine and Bryan Forbes.

Technically, as expected, it is impeccable. It is shot in black and white by Christopher Challis, scored by Brian Easdale and set designed by Hein Heckroth.

It was belatedly released in America as Hour of Glory in 1952.

It was filmed at Denham Film Studios in Buckinghamshire, Worton Hall Studios in Isleworth, Middlesex, and Shepperton Studios in Shepperton, Surrey, with location shooting at Chesil Bank and St Catherine’s Chapel in Dorset, Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, and on London’s Victoria Embankment.

The Small Back Room is directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, runs 106 minutes, is made by The Archers and London Films, is distributed by British Lion Films, is written by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, based on the novel by Nigel Balchin, is shot by Christopher Challis, is produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is scored by Brian Easdale, and set designed by Hein Heckroth.

Release date 21 February 1949 (UK).

The cast are David Farrar as Sammy Rice, Kathleen Byron as Susan, Jack Hawkins as R.B. Waring, Leslie Banks as Colonel A.K. Holland, Michael Gough as Captain Dick Stuart, Cyril Cusack as Corporal Taylor, Milton Rosmer as Professor Mair, Emrys Jones as Joe, Walter Fitzgerald as Brine. Renée Asherson as A.T.S. corporal, Henry Caine as Sergeant Major Rose, Sid James as “Knucksie” Moran, Sam Kydd as Private Crowhurst, ,Robert Morley as the government minister, Roddy Hughes as Welsh doctor, Bryan Forbes as Peterson, the dying gunner, Roderick Lovell as Captain Pearson, James Dale as Brigadier, Elwyn Brook-Jones as Gladwin, Anthony Bushell as Colonel Strang, Julian Somers as Dr Bryan, James Carney as Sergeant Groves, Ted Heath’s Kenny Baker Swing Group as Hickory Tree Band, Kenny Baker as trumpeter, Frederic Lewis as Fred Lewis, and Patrick Macnee as a committee member.

Nigel Balchin (3 December 1908 – 17 May 1970).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5,502

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