Only
one year after the release of The Red Shoes in Technicolor, British
filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger created the black-and-white
wartime thriller The Small Back Room. While the movie sprang from a gritty novel about
alcohol abuse and explosives research, it's halfway between character study and Hitchcockian suspense, and every
frame is stuffed with witty cinematic flourishes. Powell and Pressburger's
filmography is so deep that even their secondary works contain a wealth of
invention and pure pleasure.
David
Farrar plays a munitions researcher employed by one of the many quasi-official
projects and institutes that got funding for various projects during World War
II. (Powell makes the point with his usual deftness by having the camera pan
down a building's long directory to the improvised sign at the bottom that
points to Farrar's workplace.) By night, he battles the pain of his artificial
leg and his alcohol addiction, with the help of the group's secretary, Kathleen
Byron. By day, he battles the bureaucracy, venality, and incompetence of the
British political and military machine—putting on shows for visiting
ministers, resisting his superiors' selfish ambition, and investigating a
frightening new booby trap that has started killing and maiming children on
England's shores. As he races to learn the bomb's secrets, Farrar pits his
blunt good sense against the trauma of combat and the self-medicating behaviors
that fail to put it to rest.
The
Small Back Room
has sequences that could serve as a template for a British film noir, full of
shadows, tilts, and half-obscured figures. But simultaneously, it demonstrates Powell
and Pressburger's clear-eyed view of the world's pettiness and injustice. A
dolly shot of a luncheon at a club matches each diner to the bowler hat or
officer's cap resting above his table, until Farrar's battered trilby appears.
As Farrar reads test results for a new artillery piece, jackhammers drown out
his voice while the VIPs around the conference table feign interest. And in a
striking dream sequence, Farrar is pinned to the walls of his flat by a looming
giant whiskey bottle. The Small Back Room is minor Powell and Pressburger, but it
could hardly be mistaken for anyone else's work.
Key
features:
An insightful commentary track by scholar Charles Barr, and charming audio of
Powell dictating a few pages on the film for his autobiography.