Une heure avant l'aube

Have done for a while highly appreciated W Somerset Maugham's work, some may find it old-fashioned but to me his sharp prose, insight and witticisms delight. Can absolutely see why his work is celebrated and do wish it was adapted more. Also have liked Veronica Lake in other things, especially in 'This Gun for Hire', 'I Married a Witch', 'The Blue Dahlia' and 'Sullivan's Travels'. Franchot Tone has also been good elsewhere, though in the right role.

Sadly, 'The Hour Before the Dawn' is not a great, or even good, representation of either or of most people involved. Even the few that come off well have done better things. The source material is a lesser Maugham effort in the first place and that is betrayed in how 'The Hour Before the Dawn' adapts it, which is pretty badly. Others have said that it is considered one of the films that started Lake's decline and while not her very worst film it is one of her worst and contains one of her worst performances.

Very few films out there are irredeemable, and 'The Hour Before the Dawn' is not an irredeemable film. It has its moments. It looks pretty good, it has a nice moody atmosphere in the lighting and in the photography as well. Have always admired Miklos Rozsa as a film composer, one of my first exposures to him being his wonderful score for Alfred Hitchcock's 'Spellboound', and it is as haunting as ever, in a way that's both eerie and melancholic.

Most of the acting was not good at all, but Binnie Barnes does a good job with the rendition of "Roll Out the Barrel" being a welcome bit of levity. The film does come to life at the end, where there is finally some energy and suspense. A shame that it took so long to get there.

Lake however was clearly taxed by her role and no it was not just her struggles with the accent. The character feels sketchy here and confuses, and Lake didn't seem to know what she was doing, sometimes resorting to histrionics and most of the time looking bored. Tone is better and his character intrigues more and confuses less, but the role needed an actor that had a lot more hard-boiled edge with Tone spending quite a lot of the time looking bemused. The rest of the acting doesn't register in one-dimensional parts. The direction is pretty pedestrian, especially in the too long to get going early portions.

The story is very dull a vast majority of the time, often uneventful and with a severe lack of tension or suspense. Further disadvantaged by over-obvious twists and a subtlety of a sledgehammer heavy-handedness. The characters completely lack depth, uncharacteristic of Maugham, with the writers clearly being at sea as to what to do with Lake's character. The script has none, or should we say very little, of Maugham's characteristic sharpness, wit, insight and sincere prose, one could easily have mistaken the film for being an adaptation of a story written by another author and an inexperienced one at that.

Overall, disappointing. 4/10

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.

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.

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.

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.