Teia de Sabotagem

This is a great film, with a decent plot and wonderful location work, not least in the Battersea Power Station climax, as well as claustrophobic interior work, especially in the Ellis electrical shop.

Whether or not the red menace was ever plausible in this sense, there was enough friction to make it a reasonable starting point for a thriller (it's more likely than an invasion from outer space, surely). I suspect it is only the anti-Communist message that caused the film to be totally neglected; I have never seen this on British television, and only found it on DVD. No other film of this quality and style has been so effectively hidden for so long.

What is really worth emphasising is the brilliance of the cast. I can honestly think of no other British film boasting so many familiar faces - there is a period of about 20 minutes in the middle where every scene produces another well-known actor doing a cameo. The 19 billed players are pretty recognisable, but what other film could additionally include, uncredited, Jean Anderson, Alfie Bass, Harry Fowler, Everley Gregg, Peter Jones, Moultrie Kelsall, Sam Kydd, Harry Locke, Victor Maddern, Dandy Nichols, Marianne Stone and Lockwood West, and those were only the ones I spotted. The IMDb cast list includes several others that I will have to look for on a second viewing.

The previous comment on this indeed very fine and intense movie has to be rectified in at least one important aspect: fortunately enough it DOES exist on VHS, more particularly in the series "British Classics Collection". For one or another strange reason though, the manufacturer of this video labeled it as "Crime", while it rather is a "Political action thriller" (even if we don't get much ideological explanations about the motives of the saboteurs.)

After blowing up a ship at London Docks, a group of (communist) saboteurs decide to hit a far more important target, the Battersea Power Station.(For those not acquainted with this tall building which provided grateful Londoners with electricity during the Blitz, it is that somewhat sinister looking power plant used on the cover of Pink Floyd's "Animals" LP from 1977. The band's promotion stunt of attaching a gigantic pig-shaped balloon to one of the chimneys became a quite famous one)

The idea behind the raid against Battersea is of course to destabilize temporarily the City, by provoking a large scale power cut. Scotland Yard in the meantime has found evidence on board of the SS Asia Star which clearly indicates that the explosion was not an unfortunate accident, but a deliberate act of sabotage. Bit by bit, Special Branch manages to close in on the saboteurs. In a very fascinating and intense finale, a large scale battle between the cops and the saboteurs takes place inside the "heart" of Battersea.

It's really a fine action movie with a staccato rhythm, taking place in and around the superb location of an almost mythical building, that somehow managed to survive several attacks by Heinkel and Dornier bombers. Ben Vanhees Berchem Antwerp Belgium

Exciting, Constantly On-the-Move.

This Overlooked Early-50's British Cold-War Thriller Never Lulls.

Introducing a Multitude of Characters, Spys, Counter-Intelligence Officers, and Every-Day Folks Caught in the Middle.

It's a Multifaceted Sabotage Plot.

The Fast-Paced Film is Well Acted and Shot.

With a Plethora of Outdoor Scenes, Close-Knit Indoor Meetings of the Plotters and Counter-Plotters.

An Intelligent Script Accompanies the Mystery and Intrigue.

The Movie is a Sequel, Made by the Same Production Team that did..."Seven Days to Noon" (1950).

The Director's Production Team-Mate and Brother, John Bolton, Did one of the Best British Film-Noirs, "Brighton Rock" (1948).

This is a Crackling "Communist" Infiltration Movie.

Although, Communist, Reds, of Soviet-Union is Never Explicitly Stated.

Only its Philosophy and Politics.

Cold-War Movies from the Early 50's, a Heart-Beat Away Joe McCarthy and All, Doesn't Get Much Better.

The Conclusion in the Industrial Sector Doesn't Hold Back on Thrills and Spares No Expense in its Verisimilitude.

Breathtaking, and a Must-See.

Roy Boulting's drama reminded me of the Archer's HOUR OF GLORY, about the work of bomb disposal during the war, released a couple of years earlier. Like that drama, there's nothing glamorous or flag-waving about it. The war may have grown cold and it may now be about Communist cells and politicians happy to use explosions that kill dockworkers for their own political advantage, but it has the same dirty and unhappy feeling about it.

Cinematographer Gilbert Taylor abets this gloomy and paranoid atmosphere with stark British noir lighting. The sets are cramped and crowded, and starkly lit from the side and overhead, to offer dramatic shapes, but never let you look anyone in the eye. The actors are all good: no stars of the era, but performers you would recognize, familiar faces..... so that the audience members would say don't I know him? He couldn't be a bad 'un.... but in Boulting's nasty world, the best can turn out to be the worst, and the only salvation lies in the fact that there is yet some decency among the unregarded.

Well, that last pious wish was because he was working among other big-name behind-the-screen talent and money men. Soon enough he would reunite with his twin brother John and they would turn out some movies where only fools were decent.

An otherwise workmanlike British thriller with familiar overtones of anti-Communist paranoia is salvaged by a lively script that underplays the bellicose propagandizing of other, similar witch-hunts. The emphasis instead is on action and character and some colorful local dialogue, as a network of saboteurs infiltrates the highest (and lowest) levels of democracy with nefarious plots to undermine England's power structure. The enemy agents are never precisely identified (it's clear who they are long before the authorities catch them 'Red' handed), and of course they're no match for the stiff upper lips of Scotland Yard, although it takes an extended gun battle at the Battersea power station to prove it. The film was less flattering and thus less popular than its predecessor, 'Seven Days to Noon', but seen today it remains an enjoyable, well-crafted relic from the warmer days of the Cold War.