School for Secrets

The war had only just ended but as early as 1946 the British film industry swung into action to relive the actions victories battles and inventions of the British war effort. British movie goers in an era before television flocked to such stories for more than a decade the war was to remain big box office at British cinemas. This lesser know boffin movie was quickly produced soon after the end of hostilities and it proves accomplished entertainment with a very strong cast of famous names and faces with the highlight on British scientific achievement from somewhat eccentric but brilliant minds.

I was a Junior Scientific Officer at TRE Malvern and lent my Wellington aircraft to the film makers to show 'window' deployment. I recall seeing a clip of this activity in 1946, whether in a cinema or at TRE theatre I cannot recall. The DVD does not show it. The DVD is factually incorrect,the acting dreadful and the plot frequently chronologically incorrect. Life at TRE was nothing like that portrayed and the love story sloppy in the extreme The operator in the Bruneval Raid was Flight Sergeant Cox, the only person dressed in RAF uniform. Probably as some colonel in a plush office whose nearest to the war was the golf course or polo ground saying that'We can't have an RAF chap in army uniform eh what' It was this raid which caused the overnight exodus from Worth to Malvern College for fear of reprisals. R.B-K

Don't watch this film if you are looking for technical details on radar development, as one 'boffin' reviewer has done. This was written and acted as entertainment, not an educational film, and as such it succeeds. Never seen it before this afternoon, but thoroughly enjoyed watching some of our finest actors from that period, with witty banter that was typical of that era. Recommended as a reminder that we still had a sense of humour, despite the recent end to WWII.

I'm not certain that the Brits were quite ready to reveal their secrets (like high-tech radar or "windows") even in 1946 because so much of this film is made of chit chat about uniforms and interloping schoolmasters. I learned something about the stresses involved but little about the shadier side of the work.

The talkiness is somewhat relieved towards the end when the film takes us on bombing missions over Europe, following a boffin or a doughty RAF man like Richard Attenborough. Pretty daring, actually, those scenes of flight.

But the Brits were on the brink of making some of the finest films about World War II that ever appeared on screen, "The Cruel Sea," for instance. And this one looks a little pallid.

A very nice bit of post war propaganda showing how our technological advantage helped to win the war, without this secret advantage the war may have been lost, the boffins contributed a lot to the victory. It was superior technology that won the war of the Atlantic against the U-Boats.

Mostly posh people playing the boffins as is usually the case with a great script with lots of witty lines.

A great cast who played their parts very well. Very well worth watching and currently being shown on TPTV in the UK. No slow bits that leads to the viewer losing interest and giving up watching it to the end.