I could just as easily have summarized this review as Minority Report as it's a certain twelve-to-seven I'll be outnumbered by those lining up to genuflect at ANYTHING bearing the name Michael Powell and if I had a piece of the saliva concession I'd be one happy bunny. I am, of course, equally prone to anticipate new work by favourite directors but also, I hope, sufficiently objective to record when they disappoint; a great admirer of Diane Kurys I was there when L'Anniversaire opened a couple of years back and I really needn't have bothered; Nicole Garcia makes, as a rule, fine movies but Selon Charlie was ho-hum at best; Marion Vernoux made an exquisite film in Rien a faire so I was there on the first day when her latest, A Boire opened: least said ... On the other hand I've never really understood the fuss about Michael Powell, competent, sure, entertaining, on the whole, but DEIFICATION? Gimme a break. It lost me from Frame #1 when having been informed we are in Kiel in the middle of World War I the first thing we see is a newspaper Banner Headline in English which is compounded by people in a hotel, whom it is reasonable to assume are largely German, speaking not only English but using English idiomatic speech. The plot is set in motion when U-boat commander Conrad Veidt is given a mission to infiltrate English security in the Orkneys, a cue for us to cut to that locale. The next sequence is almost beyond parody. A young girl is leaving an inn to take up a post as a schoolteacher on a small island; for the sake of exposition she is obliged to explain this to the landlady who is seeing her off and throw in the additional information that she has obtained both a passport and a Visa. At this juncture an elderly matron turns up in a chauffeur driven car and asks for a room. For no reason other than to move the plot forward she is immediately put in the picture about the schoolteacher which prompts her to offer to drive her to the ferry. En route - and in a time of War and ultra high security - the girl not only reveals that she has a passport but actually PRODUCES it, whereby she is chloroformed by the elderly party so that substitute, in the shape of Valerie Hobson, may take her place. In the fullness of one reel Hobson is installed in the schoolteacher's cottage and has rendez-voused with Veidt; the plan is for a team of U-boats to assemble and sink half the British fleet at Scapa Flow with the help of a disgruntled Royal Navy Officer. Of course what transpires is the equivalent of 'it was all a dream'; the disgruntled Navy type, Sebastian Shaw is really a counter-spy as is Hobson and THEIR plan is to lure as many U-boats as possible into the area then drop a few dozen depth-charges where they will do the most good.
It's not ALL bad, of course. Only about two thirds of it.
It's not ALL bad, of course. Only about two thirds of it.