The Hour Before the Dawn

Franchot Tone is a teacher from a landed country family in England. As the events in Europe unroll, from the Anschluss through the seizing of the Sudetenland, he remains a staunch and reasoned pacifist. He loves England, but will not kill. When Britain declares war, he seeks and obtains Conscientious Objector status, and goes to work on a nearby farm. What he does not know is that the woman he loves, Veronica Lake, is not just an Austrian refugee. She is a Nazi spy.

It's a competent wartime programmer from the solid director Frank Tuttle, filled with the British Colony actors: Binnie Barnes, Henry Stephenson, Phillip Merivale and others. There are some nice performances, especially Miss Barnes as a former entertainer who calms the children during an air raid by leading them in performing "Roll Out the Barrel" to a player piano. Miss Lake is also very good, playing her role very quietly. It's not a world-beater of a movie, but a very well-done effort.

I was unaware of this film till I found it on youtube.Initially I viewed it because of my interest in Veronica Lake.However I became more interested by the strange view of Britain at war.As an alien from an enemy country Lake would have been interned.Tone as an objector would probably have been asked to serve as a non combatant,eg a medic.There were no spy rings in Britain. Lake is miscast as a refugee and I would agree that this marks the beginning of her decline both personally and professionally.

Veronica Lake is the major character here, as sweet and lovely as ever, it is impossible to suspect her of anything irregular, she is perfectly adorable as an Austrian refugee having got out of Austria just in time before Anschluss and working as a governess with one of the most influential families in England, which is all on purpose. One of the sons, Franchot Tone in one of his best parts, is a conscientious objector with perfectly good reasons for it, carrying on a difficult trauma since childhood which serves as an introduction to the film, so we have to understand and respect his pacifism, even when the Second World War breaks out. He is in love with the fair governess with the irresistible German accent, and she wraps him up round her little finger, until his nephew by accident finds her out, which completely turns the tables. Somerset Maugham was one of the most expert psychological writers ever, and he was especially sharp about ladies. Franchot Tone's conversion from an inveterate pacifist to an implacable murderer and then to an Air Force pilot makes perfect sense, although he was just a teacher with the best possible merits. The film is made like an efficient thriller, but there is much more underneath which no film version can really make real or include.

WW2 film about a conscientious objector (Franchot Tone) and his girlfriend (Veronica Lake), an ineffectual German spy. Mostly talked about today, if at all, for Lake's bad performance and how this film hurt her career. Her accent is admittedly very poor. Still, I enjoy this one. The objector plot with Tone is interesting and Lake has some exciting scenes. Good support from Binnie Barnes, Henry Stephenson, and John Sutton. The worst part of the film is the little kid played by David Leland. He would make anyone join the enemy.

Though many people reckon that THBTD marked the start of Veronica Lake's decline, I thought that she was very good in this film, departing from the peek-a-boo image projected in her other films that I've seen. In fact I found her more attractive with her German-style hair. And some of her muted facial reactions were very good.

But I concede that this production could not be described as a career highlight for any of those involved. The backdrops showing English countryside were very basic and of the rest of the cast I knew only Franchot Tone. And the three main settings - the big house, the airfield and the farm buildings seemed to be extremely close together.

The plot was fair enough, though I did wonder about how one character ended up where he did given his action at the end of the film.