Thunder Rock *** (1942, Michael Redgrave, James Mason, Lilli Palmer, Barbara Mullen ) – Classic Movie Review 10,533

‘Strange Emotions Stir the Pulse… when LOVE and PASSION clash in the world’s loneliest outpost!’

David Charleston (Michael Redgrave): ‘For all humanity I make one wish: let the people die off fast.’

Director Roy Boulting’s 1942 Thunder Rock is a beautifully acted, haunting, if stagy version of Robert Ardrey’s entertaining parable play about a cynical, embittered newspaper writer, David Charleston (Michael Redgrave), fed up with everything, who takes to the Thunder Rock lighthouse in Lake Michigan, where he sees ghosts of drowned immigrants to America.

In a timely WW2 wartime message, they renew his faith in his fellow man and make him want to return to the company of people again.

Among the good acting from a fine cast headed by Lilli Palmer, Barbara Mullen, James Mason, Frederick Valk, Frederick Cooper and Finlay Currie, it is Redgrave in particular who gives an outstanding performance as the lighthouse keeper.

Mutz Greenbaum’s black and white photography takes it out of the theatre and gives it a sense of cinema.

Also in the cast are Sybille Binder, Jean Shepherd, Barry Morse, George Carney, Miles Malleson, Brian Herbert, Tony Quinn, A E Matthews, Alfred Sangster, Olive Sloan, Harold Anstruther, Tommy Duggan, Gerard Heinz, Andreas Malandrinos, James Pirrie and Guy Le Fevre.

The screenplay is by Jeffrey Dell and Bernard Miles.

It is made by Charter Film Productions at D&P Studios, Denham Studios, Denham, Buckinghamshire, England.

Finlay Currie repeated his role of Captain Joshua in a 1955 TV adaptation of the play.

In 2018, it is screening on Talking Pictures Freeview tv on Channel 81.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,533

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