The Small Back Room (1949)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Small Back Room (1949) – M. Powell & E. Pressburger

After their run of amazing classics (including Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, I Know Where I’m Going! and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp) throughout the 1940’s, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger retreated to this darker almost noir look at a man struggling with himself, disability, and drink.  David Farrar (who played Mr. Dean in Black Narcissus) stars as the wartime scientist who has lost his foot and struggles with pain and the need for whisky to stop it.  He is loved by his office’s main secretary (Kathleen Byron, the mad nun also from Black Narcissus) but he doubts that he is the right man for her (she doesn’t).  The script is intelligent and adult, dealing with these real issues as well as a plot that looks squarely at office politics in the context of a military decision to adopt a new gun.  Powell and Pressburger never dumb things down for the audience. Farrar is finally tested when he has to defuse a German booby trap on a pebbly beach after a night of heavy drinking (that includes a surreal nightmare sequence) in a tense 17 minute sequence that decides his fate. A bit more grim and less magical than the Archers’ best but still strong.