The Next of Kin

According to IMDB, Winston Churchill wanted to have this film banned. After seeing it, I can understand...though I am glad the movie was shown to British audiences during the war. This is because it's a different sort of war film...one without the usual cliches and with a much higher degree of realism. So realistic in part of the story that the British get their butts kicked by the Germans and a few of the Brits in the story don't act so intelligently or honorably.

The theme in the movie is essentially for military folks to keep their mouths shut and their wits about them, as Nazi agents might be about their country in order to report all that they see to their bosses back in Germany. Again and again through the course of the picture, you see some Brits working hard to stop the German spy apparatus but far more who unwittingly help the enemy through their own stupidity.

I really appreciated how the film passed on an essential message without making the Nazis like the usual snarling villains in war films. I also appreciate how intelligent the script is. In fact, the only things I didn't love about the film was some of its use of stock footage near the end....which is a real shame since they did a great job of creating realistic looking battle scenes. Well worth seeing.

By the way, you can sure tell this was NOT made in Hollywood, as you get a brief glimpse of boobs as well as having a curse word. This is not to say British films of the era had an anything goes style...British censorship was very strong...just not regarding a curse word or showing a book with a bare chested lady on the cover.

I awarded this film 7/10 as it was well produced with the help of the armed services and although actors played the principal parts it was entirely credible.It showed that despite being a propaganda film, the Germans were very efficient and capable in gathering war time data from the British using artifice, threats, intelligence and perverted bravery. There was of course plenty of posters reminding citizens and the armed forces the danger of a casual word about what one was doing, going, and releasing other information liable to be of use to the enemy.Mervyn Johns is cast again as the 5th columnist spy like he played in "Counterblast" and appears in the end scene with Charters & Caldicot that well known acting duo.Jack Hawkins makes an early appearance wearing a moustache using his unique pre-cancerous voice.Nova Pilbeam plays a Dutch émigré whose parents are held in "protective custody" by the Gestapo in Holland who is forced to provide intelligence of troop movements to her book seller German employer.

If it had not been on YouTube.com I would never have seen this excellent film as it never appears on UK television despite the existence of various heritage channels.In fact "London Live" for example keeps repeating Ealing films they have already transmitted when there are plenty of other vintage films like the present one they could show for us vintage film aficionados.

You're transported back to 1942. You, yourself are sitting in a cinema praying to God that you have personally not caused the deaths of hundreds of people. This isn't just a movie, it's a vital life or death message you need to heed.

These days we're familiar with spy stories. We've seen so many of those films that we know the tricks of the trade. To us now its hammer over the head approach in getting the message across seems oddly unsubtle but this was aimed at a 1942 population. The audience back then didn't have our experience, they didn't know what we now know. Without wanting to sound patronising, they did need educating, they needed to be told. The pitfalls of having loose lips had to be spelled out in black and white.

This isn't like a normal picture but neither is it a dry preachy lecture on how to behave. The filmmakers knew what they were doing: they knew how to engage with their audience, they knew they had to make this both informative, exciting and above all else, entertaining. It's very different to most wartime morale boosting movies, in fact as Churchill noted, it's quite depressing. That's what is so powerful about it - if you aren't careful, you, yes you might personally plunge the world into a living nightmare.

Besides being a genuinely entertaining piece of cinema, it's a genuinely important piece of history, an actual part of the war effort which we can now experience for ourselves.

Considering I was hitherto unaware of this excellent film prior to it's being shown on "Talking Pictures" tv, what a revelation it was. With a stellar cast and a "careless talk costs lives" propaganda backcloth, this film ticks along nicely and, whilst providing a very serious message also manages to give the viewer a genuine thriller. Some fine performances here and good to see the likes of Jack Hawkins, Nova Pilbeam, Mervyn Johns, Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, to mention but a few, getting involved. Overall, a really terrific effort and yet another old British war story that leaves so many more recent movies standing.

Why does the Brigadier's wine merchant know where he is being posted next? The mess sergeant let it drop. Efforts to tighten up security to make sure leaks that might reveal troop movement aren't much use when the British soldier believes we're all in it together. The only suspicion is raised when a trooper claims he was assigned to Headquarters, and another soldier doesn't recognize him. He reports him to the C.O., and it turns out he's right.... and the reporting trooper has his leave cut short to escort the spy to prison. Even that pretty dancer you've been dating turns out to be telling German spies what you've said innocuously.

It's all being managed by people who run bookstores or are dentists, with accents that proclaim they are as English as John Bull. And their deadliest agent, who kills Nova Pilbeam -- Boo! Hiss! -- is worn-down, workaday Mervyn Johns.

The War Office commissioned this movie from Michael Balcon. He took the small amount of money, doubled it, made this rip-roaring yet somber spy drama. Once he recovered the money he had put into it, the profits went to the War Office, and there were plenty of profits. It was enormously popular, and rightly so, even if Churchill considered having it censored because it might destroy morale. If we can't trust each other, whom can we trust?

It all ends with an exciting race. The army is planning a massive raid. Johns has the aerial surveys. Can he get it to the German High Command in time for them to figure out where it will be and stop it? Or at least make it so difficult that death notices must be sent to the next of kin?

So keep your lip buttoned up. Even if you're Wayne Naunton taking to Basil Radford. Mervyn Johns might be listening.