Adira-2

Although this movie is nearly fifty years old, it had me on the edge of my seat the whole way through. What was going to happen next? Would the characters escape? I can't say much more, without giving away the story except - "Hunted" was brilliantly plotted and directed. Thumbs up to everyone concerned, including Dirk Bogarde as the wanted man, and Jon Whitely as the little boy whom he first used, and then befriended.

My local TV guide gave me high expectations for this movie ... but alas I was disappointed. It's not that the acting is bad. With Ralph Richardson in the lead how could it be? Nor is the subject matter uninteresting. However "School for Secrets" is poorly constructed. It piles scene on scene, without building up to a proper climax. It has too many main characters - and most of them are written as semi-humorous stereotypes. One day someone will make the definitive movie about the development of radar during World War II, but this isn't it.

About halfway through the Second World War in Britain, people started envisaging a brave new postwar world. "The Way We Live", made shortly after the war, taps into this idealism.

This movie reminds me of my school days, when we were ushered into a darkened room and treated a film on some instructive subject such as atomic power, fluoride or sugar production. In this case the topic was town planning, and the town in question was Plymouth. Using some slender fictional devices - a writer investigating postwar reconstruction, and a "typical" family suffering from overcrowding - "The Way We Live" sets out to inform rather than entertain. There isn't much drama, and no plot to speak of. It borrows a lot of footage from contemporary newsreels. In the end we don't even get to see the rebuilt city of Plymouth, because in 1946 the city was still awaiting reconstruction.