Haute trahison

This is a film which I can never remember seeing on TV.Unfortunately it seems as relevant today as when it was made as there have been terrorist campaigns since and sadly at this present time.However what is so ironic about this film is that people were lead ,wrongly to believe,that the security services were on top of the situation,whereas Burgess,MacLean and Ogilvy were happily giving secrets away to the Soviets.Of course they couldn't be guilty,they went to Oxbridge.The film is extremely well written and directed.

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.

Roy Boulting deserves remembering as one of the best British directors of the 1950s and 1960s. With films like THE MAGIC BOX, SEVEN DAYS TO NOON, THE FAMILY WAY and other outstanding credits.

HIGH TREASON is certainly a good early Cold War flick, at a time when across the Atlantic US Senator McCarthy was launching his famous House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) which basically suspected everyone of communist leanings, and those suspicions were only heightened in Great Britain, as part of a continent - Europe - where World War Two had begun and had remained its prime theater, with Russia embarking on expansionism after the conflict, and spies like Kim Philby and others defecting to the USSR.

HIGH TREASON examines the way British police investigate a bombing incident resulting in human and instructural losses, and link it to a spy ring headed by a British traitor. It is certainly well done, even if I have some reservations about the authenticity of the final shootout.

Convincing acting, cinematography and realistic dialogue all help, even if HIGH TREASON rates nowhere near masterpiece. 7/10.

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.

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