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.

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.

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.

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.

Ralph Richardson is a well-known herpetologist among people who know who's who in herpetology. He's also an electronics engineer and attached to the unit developing radar for the RAF.

You could put Ralph Richardson in anything, and I would praise it to the skies. Saying he's perfectly cast as the understated boffin who tackles whatever is thrown at him in a self-deprecating manner, whether it's turning down an opportunity to join the Home Guard because he's too busy or parachuting into German territory to take apart a prototype of the German efforts at radar, he's always highy watchable and believable. In this movie, he's got quite a cast with him under the scripting and direction of Peter Ustinov: John Laurie, Finlay Currie and Raymond Huntley among the boffins, David Tomlinson and Richard Attenborough among the fliers. Ann Wilton and Peggy Evans are among the women who get a few lines, but it's a bit of "men must fight and women must weep" movie for them. Still, even Finlay Currie barely seems in the movie, when compared with Richardson, which is all right with me.