Unpublished Story

One of the films made by Two Cities Films in the 1940s and 1950s, this is a mostly, well-done story of newspaper reporters running into fifth-columnists within their midst in Britain during WW II. The editor of the paper and some other characters say some silly lines, but they can be overlooked. Richard Greene, Valerie Hobson, and Basil Radford star in this predictable spy thriller, showing the realities of bombed out London, although much of it is a background screen projection. The plot brings up the usual "Do we fight back or acquiesce?" wartime debate.

Hobson had played Elizabeth in Bride of Frankenstein with the master B. Karloff in 1935. Greene was Sir Henry Baskerville opposite Basil Rathbone prior to "Unpublished...", and would later play Robin Hood in the British TV series for several years. Two Cities Films was part by the Rank Organization, which made films for many years. The Rank Organization would later be turned into a casino operator, which is still operating as a public company in England. Another interesting tidbit is Hobson's marriage to producer/writer Anthoney Havelock-Allen; she appears to have met and married him in 1939, and made nine films together. Sadly, they divorced in 1952, and she only made a couple more films after that...

British actor Richard Greene was well on his way to rivaling Tyrone Power at 20th Century Fox when he returned to England when war broke out. Later he became my childhood Robin Hood in a successful TV series.

Here he stars with Valerie Hobson in "Unpublished Story" from 1942, directed by Harold French.

Greene plays reporter Bob Randall, who is exhausted as he returns from his assignment in Dunkirk. Among the young fighting men, he saw Nazis posing as French citizens as the Germans took over France.

What upsets him is that there are groups in England, such as Peace in our Time who refuse to accept the war news and believe there is a path to negotiation and peace. Hitler isn't such a bad guy.

Randall and a fellow reporter Carol (Hobson) investigate Peace in our Time further. She believes they have a right to free speech. He thinks they're dangerous and a threat to national security. In fact, he's having trouble getting his stories critiquing the pacifist movement published.

The film uses real newsreel footage of bombs dropping, and we see people walking in blackouts, running into the subway when they hear an alarm. It's everyday people coping with war happening on their own soil.

The acting is very good. Greene and Hobson have a nice chemistry. It's a propaganda film, but couched in an effective story.

Well produced and - in the supporting roles at least - well acted, though the two leads, Greene and Hobson, give off the odd splinter or two. (Basil Radford weighs in with a very watchable turn as the undercover Intelligence Officer).

The story is a variation on the 5th column scare, which had well-worn currency in wartime England of course, but manages to steer clear of the most obvious clichés.

Interesting and fairly authentic view of London in wartime.

Richard Greene is a newspaperman covering the retreat in Northern France. When he gets gets back to his paper, he dictates his story and collapses. When he arises to pursue the news, a peace-at-any-cost movement, the Blitz, and novice newspaperwoman Valerie Hobson occupy his attention.

It's a pretty good battle-of-the-sexes story set amidst the darkest days of the War, and besides the leads, there are some fine performers on hand: Basil Radford as a censor who may have a little more on the ball; George Carney as a public-house owner who insists that people enter through the bombed-out door instead of the bombed-out window; and other welcome movie regulars like Roland Culver and Miles Malleson. Director Harold French gets good performances out of everyone, and if the propaganda seems laid on too thick for modern tastes, it's what was in style at the moment.

Miss Hobson's star was in the ascendant. She was married to the film's producer, Anthony Havelock-Allan. It was the fourth of nine pictures they would work on together.

The lasting value of this film is the almost documentary scenes from the blitz in the shelters with a lot of insights into ordinary people and, above all, a newspaper being bombed and getting on with the work anyway. This is 1942 in the worst heat of the war but after the blitz, the film starts with the Dunkirk trauma with Richard Greene getting away from France with one of the last boats and then continuing his reporting business under the blitz of London, where he runs into lovely Valerie Hobson and a spy circle, masked as a movement for "Peace in Our Time", one of the most ironic headlines in history. But in the heart of the intrigue is a small man Trapes (Frederick Cooper in a very memorable performance), who actually believes in peace and preaches it with all the good faith of Neville Chamberlain, and his case is the most interesting human part of the film. He is bombed out, like so many others, and his whole world is shattered, which makes him wake up to a new reality, and he takes the consequences, even if they turn to be fatal. Richard Greene becomes secondary in all this, while it's London under the blitz which is the main actor of this almost documentary of the darkest hour of Britain in London.