The Small Back Room, starring David Farrar, Kathleen Byron, British Lion Films, 1949
Sure, lots of people on both sides of the Atlantic admired the pluck of the under-armed, under-manned, under- led British in holding up Hitler’s plans for a while to conquer all of Europe and who knows where else. And everybody knows, who has thought about it for a while, that running a modern war machine requires more than having X number of battalions fully armed and mobile ready to fight on some god-forsaken front. Those two ideas combine (oh, yah, along with a little off-hand romantic interest this is after all a cinematic effort) to drive this film under review, The Small Back Room.
Sammy (played in a manic-depressive manner as befits the character by David Farrah) is an explosives expert who, having done his bit at the front and taken a hit, a painfully bothersome artificial leg resulting, is now working his magic in the back rooms of the war establishment figuring out what will work and will not work in terms of military hardware. Of course all of this is tangled up with his pain, his attempts to deal with it through drugs and alcohol, his affair with his resolute stiff-upper lip girlfriend, Susan, (played by Kathleen Byron), who is forced to leave him as he attempts to hit bottom, military bureaucratic snafus, and other impediments to the war effort in order to turn the tide against the Germans.
Oh yah, and to keep a little dramatic tension a little off-hand problem with booby-trapped bombs that the Germans keep dropping over the English countryside. Naturally Sammy, in his element then, has to have a go at defanging these dastardly instruments, does so successfully and receives a big boost to his self-esteem (and a small back room of his own). Oh yah, as well, Susan comes back to him. Hell, you knew that was coming I told you she was resolute.
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