SCHOOL FOR SECRETS (1946)

Acting on screen since 1942, Peter Ustinov had a first solo credit as writer and made his directing debut with this nifty WWII story that doesn’t quite hit its potential.  A tremendous cast of Leading Brits (Ralph Richardson, Finlay Currie, Michael Hordren, David Tomlinson, John Lauie, Raymond Huntley) play scientists of varying disciplines called up just before the war as a think tank for yet to be designated problems.  Living, working and most of all thinking together in the house of flyer Richard Attenborough’s mother who hasn’t a clue of their importance.  (She imagines she’s running a boarding house for war shirkers & their wives!)  They end up inventing a sort of reverse engineering project, brainstorming their way to using early radar technology not for defense but as a guide for accurate attacks at night or through cloud cover using what we’d now call triangulation.  But whereas Ustinov gives everyone plenty of character bits, maintains a lively pace, manages reasonably effective model effects and works up a tragic ending for one member of the team, we never get a sense of collective brainstorming using every man‘s specialty to make the sum greater than the parts.  Pleasant enough (see Richardson’s first puff on a cigarette . . . the man was an acting genius), if no more.  But check out the future All-Stars below-the-line: Assistant Director Michael Anderson; Cinematographer Jack Hildyard; Camera Operator Gilbert Taylor.

DOUBLE-BLL/LINK:  Ustinov’s best film as director: BILLY BUDD/’62; with a star making turn from Terence Stamp, Robert Ryan’s Claggart and Ustinov, a bit young, but fine as Captain Vere. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/billy-budd-1962.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Avoid the Stateside release, SECRET FIGHT, trimmed down to 72" from 102".