The Small Back Room

After the wild fantasies of Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, Matter of Life and Death (and to a lesser extent Canterbury Tales, Colonel Blimp, and Spy in Black) this was a quiet Archers film, but one I enjoyed very much. David Farrar and Kathleen Byron are fine, well-cast, adequate - the supporting players (including Cyril Cusack and a youngish Sid James) are good, and the story, although slight, keeps the interest and is done rather well. Not entirely sure about the hallucination scene, although that in itself is well-done. I prefer the wild colours and textures of other films by the same team, but this is one I'd recommend for a look.

I have often sought out black and white films from the British cinema and was not disappointed when I came across The Small Back Room. Now possibly one of my favourite films of all time, the very good, simple underlying plot is overtaken by the principal characters, played by David Farrar and Kathleen Byron. An excellent supporting cast, including Michael Gough, Jack Hawkins and Leslie Banks enables the viewer to pull the curtains on a rainy afternoon and to lose themselves in a world that is not quite the 1943 in which the film is set and in in some ways is much later than the 1949 in which it was made. The relationship between Sammy and Susan is a deep and powerful, but secret one and is more curious when one has time to reflect and put it into its (early or late) 1940s context. The fact that they keep their feelings from their colleagues is endemic of the times but is a little curious nonetheless. A friend who knows about such things immediately latched onto the way that another male character fixes his intense gaze upon Sammy Rice to the extent that it now makes me a tiny bit uncomfortable in a non-21st century way. Keep watching this film and you will see more and more interplay between people that implies a further raft of professional and social relationships that the film never actually explores or explains. My verdict: Catch a stinking cold and take a day off work. Curl up on the sofa with a hot drink and lose yourself in a world that you will want to keep coming back to.

The films of Michael Powell feature quite prominently in the list of greatest British films list . BLACK NARCISSUS , THE RED SHOES , THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP and A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH all feature there somewhere . This film called THE SMALL BACK ROOM is constantly ignored for some reason , perhaps the fact it's in black and white might have a lot to do with it but is certainly of the best films in Powell's resume

Perhaps this fact that it is shot in black and white works in its favour ? In some ways it's a different take on film noir . David Farrar plays Sammy Rice a scientist working for the war office and finds himself besieged on all sides by marketing agents who want to win government contracts for new weapons even though these weapons are nowhere near as effective as the marketing men claim . What the film does brilliantly is taking us in to the tortured psyche of Rice who knows fine well that this will cost the lives of young men who have to fight the war against Nazi Germany with these weapons

In film noir the protagonist is portrayed as a flawed anti-hero and in the case of Rice he's flawed both physically and mentally . He has a foot missing which has been replaced by a tin one that causes him pain which has led to an addiction for pain killers which don't work except to feed his addiction . Rice also has a sometimes addiction to alcohol and Powell shows his expressionistic influences by a quite breath taking sequence where Rice has to literally fight his addiction . The entire film benefits greatly from the cinematography of Christopher Challis that any director of film noir would kill for

One other overlooked aspect to THE SMALL BACK ROOM that you would never get in an American movie is the " joint effort " portrayal of the allies . Churchill summed up allied victory as being won by " American money , British courage and Soviet blood " a somewhat simplistic sound bite but the fact is it was a broad coalition of many countries and of many brave young people who can claim the victory for defeating Nazi Germany and it's nice to see a film open with a British officer finding himself surrounded by servicemen from America , Poland and France . Believe me you wouldn't get that in a 21st Century American film

THE SMALL BACK ROOM remains one of the best films Powell made . Like the cosmopolitan coalition who beat the Nazis there's a lot of factors as to why it's a good movie . If you're expecting a war film then that's not what you're going to get because it's a journey through the psyche of a tortured man with the burden of a world at war on his shoulders and the film is good at portraying this on screen and contains some excellent cinematography

This is a wonderful movie, ahead of its time. The filming has the intense chiaroscuro of monochrome at its best, Kathleen Byron is astonishingly beautiful (even more so than in Black Narcissus), and the undertones are dark and very modern. Susan and Sam (the pain-ridden hero) have no idealised relationship; the film is uncompromising about Sam's alcoholism and, remarkably for its time, clear in its implication that Sue and Sam live together despite being unmarried. There are also many nice well-observed details, such as the scientist who embarrasses a visiting minister by knowing the answer to a sum faster than the calculator they are supposed to be demonstrating, the snoozing officer in the War Room, and the laid-back Strang who clearly is intensely attracted to Sam. I just keep watching this and finding more to see.

This film is an interesting return to the general subject matter of Powell and Pressburger's black and white war films (49th Parallel, One of our Aircraft, etc..), but, made four years after the end of the war, it is a moody piece that focuses on a man disabled by the war. It is typical of their work in that it features brilliantly well-rounded, truly adult characters without easy answers or one-dimensional poses; it is also a departure from their other films of the period in its lack of flamboyance and otherworldly flair. The gritty style - no music, for example, and wonderfully spare dialogue by Pressburger - is perfectly echoed by the intense performances of Kathleen Byron and David Farrar. As always, Powell's keen visual sense is paramount to the brilliance of the Archers' films, and the bomb-defusing scene on the beach makes great use of the setting in its compositions and editing. Although it is not the best introduction to the work of Powell and Pressburger, this film is a keen testament to the capacity of their storytelling abilities in weaving a tale of a man who finds redemption through work and love. Whether their films are explorations of the power of art or the effects of war, I consistently find their work profoundly moving. Let's hope that it is FINALLY released on video or, better still, DVD. (Attention, Scorcese!!!!)