Seven Days to Noon **** (1950, Barry Jones, Olive Sloane, André Morell, Joan Hickson, Sheila Manahan, Hugh Cross, Ronald Adam) – Classic Movie Review 4534

Directors John and Roy Boulting’s tense 1950 British suspense thriller tells a concerned and intelligent story about an English atomic scientist Professor Willingdon (Barry Jones) runs away from a research center with an atomic bomb.

He threatens to blow up the centre of London in a letter to the British Prime Minister if the government doesn’t ban the bomb that he is developing and end any atomic research within a week. It is produced and co-written by Roy Boulting.

This is top thriller entertainment from the Boulting Brothers, thanks to the plausible playing, strong screenplay based on a gripping Oscar-winning Best Motion Picture Story by Paul Dehn and James Bernard, and the exciting, quick-moving direction.

It is Joss Ackland’s first film, aged 22.

Also in the cast are Olive Sloane, André Morell as Superintendent Folland, Joan Hickson, Sheila Manahan, Hugh Cross, Ronald Adam as The Prime Minister, Marie Ney, Geoffrey Keen, Russell Waters, Grace Wyndham Goldie, Martin Boddey, Victor Maddern and Ian Wilson. BBC newscasters Frederick Allen and John Snagge, and NBC’s Merrill Mueller appear as themselves.

Although based on the book Un Nazi en Manhattan by Fernando Josseau, Dehn and Bernard never give the credits to Josseau for the story.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4534

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