What a kind of insane movie this is, in ways I love and are not at all like most insane movies. In the first place, it often seems to be only nominally about its protagonist, Sam, or about his alcoholism, or about his romance. Yet it's consistently fascinating in using sound design to convey a world of constant confusion and interruption, with dialogue drowned out or obscured by background chatter, jackhammers, snoring, etc. And it's simply hilarious as a cynical view of the back-stabbing and politics going on when everyone in theory should have been trying to stop the Nazis from blowing everyone up. So yes, the DTs sequence is virtuoso filmmaking, and the real-time bomb-defusing effectively tension-packed. But I couldn't help being more impressed by the densely-packed atmosphere emphasizing that there's an entire rest of the world that couldn't care less about this guy and his problems.

A solidly entertaining drama. more a one man show than anything else, and David Farrar does excellently. I'll be posting my full thoughts later.

A man works in a badly run scientific department doing essential war work whilst struggling with pain after losing a foot and with the alcoholism he has fallen into to cope with the pain. This is a well-plotted Powell and Pressburger film, let down only by the way in which our hero's alcoholism is shown. I'm not sure if that was because of the way they had to show a fight against addiction at that time?

What a kind of insane movie this is, in ways I love and are not at all like most insane movies. In the first place, it often seems to be only nominally about its protagonist, Sam, or about his alcoholism, or about his romance. Yet it's consistently fascinating in using sound design to convey a world of constant confusion and interruption, with dialogue drowned out or obscured by background chatter, jackhammers, snoring, etc. And it's simply hilarious as a cynical view of the back-stabbing and politics going on when everyone in theory should have been trying to stop the Nazis from blowing everyone up. So yes, the DTs sequence is virtuoso filmmaking, and the real-time bomb-defusing effectively tension-packed. But I couldn't help being more impressed by the densely-packed atmosphere emphasizing that there's an entire rest of the world that couldn't care less about this guy and his problems.

Sometimes you watch a film that does several things well, and you realise how rare it is to watch a film that does even one thing well, let alone several. This suspenseful Powell and Pressburger classic is a tense wartime drama that is also funny, an astute psychological study of addiction, and a romance that is clear-eyed and unsentimental while still being touching. Really great.

A solidly entertaining drama. more a one man show than anything else, and David Farrar does excellently. I'll be posting my full thoughts later.

A brilliant study of a fascinating character struggling with emotionally anguish. Top marks for writing and direction. #see

Terrifically British in every way; I could've listened to the characters talk all day. Typical wartime Powell and Pressburger sits somewhere between being 50% propaganda and 50% film. The melodrama is lain thick as the main character's achingly brutal self-pity takes over, but its still all the more exciting to see him turn the ship around and, you know, care again. The nightmarish hallucination he undergoes while jonesin' for booze is up there with the dream sequence in Spellbound for moments that are so different than the films they're ensconced in. And is that scene in Romeo is Bleeding where Lena Olin asks Gary Oldman "With or without?" (in reference to her prosthetic leg) an homage to the one in this film where Susan echoes a similar, but more desperate question to Sammy.

WWII movie about an explosives expert. Some rather interesting things with him fighting alcoholism - who even knew that they had alcoholism back in the '40s? The bomb stuff was fairly long and boring though. Relatively interesting movie.