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After the lavish Technicolor spectacle of The Red Shoes, British
filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger retreated into the
inward, shadowy recesses of this moody, crackling character study.
Based on the acclaimed novel by Nigel Balchin, The Small Back Room
details the professional and personal travails of troubled,
alcoholic research scientist and military bomb-disposal expert
Sammy Rice (David Farrar), who, while struggling with a complex
relationship with secretary-girlfriend Susan (Kathleen Byron), is
hired by the government to advise on a dangerous new German weapon.
Frank and intimate, deftly mixing suspense and romance, The Small
Back Room is an atmospheric, post World War II gem.
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer,
Audio commentary featuring film scholar Charles Barr,
New video interview with cinematographer Chris Challis,
Excerpts from Michael Powell's audio dictations for his
autobiography.
PLUS: A new essay by film scholar Nick James.
In their career, the Archers--Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger--made films both epic and intimate. The Small Back Room falls into the latter category. The interiors in this black-and-white picture, after a trio in Technicolor, are close and dimly lit, but rustic exteriors (including Stonehenge) and a surrealistic set piece add welcome flair. In 1943, Londoner Sammy Rice (David Farrar, quite good), a master at defusing incendiary devices, works for the Ministry of Defense. Whiskey helps to relieve the discomfort of a leg injury caused, presumably, by a mission gone wrong. As he tells girlfriend Susan (Kathleen Byron, softer than in Black Narcissus), who serves as secretary for the back-room boys, "It leaves me not caring whether it hurts or not." In order to decode Germany’s new booby-trapped bomb, the military enlists his expertise, but Rice's drinking problem makes him a liability. Noir, suspense, and documentary-style realism converge to create a sympathetic portrait of one man's struggle with shame and inadequacy, providing a link between Brief Encounter and The Lost Weekend. As critic Raymond Durgnat suggests, it isn’t "a 'story one follows', but a sensibility in which one bathes." This shadowy room may not be the best place to begin with the Archers, but it's a fine place with which to end. The Criterion Collection edition adds erudite commentary from author Charles Barr, an essay from Sight & Sound editor Nick James, an interview with cinematographer Chris Challis, and dictation excerpts from Powell's memoir, Million Dollar Movie. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
NO BLAST!!! from the pastReviewed by J. Faulk, 2009-02-12
England, 1943. Bomb defuser David Farrar has one "tin foot." He rubs his ankle with a grimace and limps slightly, is moody and defeatist and booze thirsty, and so rather holds back in his relationship with Kathleen Byron. (There is no prolog showing the explosion that maimed him.) Now German planes are dropping "thermos flask" objects here and there which, when picked up, explode violently, taking a toll on children. (There is no scene of such an explosion; a scene with a killed boy's mother and his witnessing very young brother was deleted due to time considerations.) Farrar and his Army associate then rush to a location where a soldier is dying from his encounter with another explosive device, to ask him whether he picked it up by the end or the middle. (No need to show this explosion, just attend to the dying youth trying to speak.) Some time later the Army associate finds two more of these mysterious objects on a pebbly beach and phones Farrar to come quickly. The Army associate perishes trying to defuse device #1. (This explosion is not shown, but reported on when Farrar arrives at the site.) Farrar gets a grip on himself and goes alone to device #2 to do or die. There is no music to wring some suspense out of the scene, just walky-talky remarks between Farrar and other team members. Dear DVD Viewer, having watched the first hundred minutes of this semi-bore, are you secretly rooting for the explosive thermos flask?
Another great Powell and Pressburger filmReviewed by Ted, 2008-10-05
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the
film.
The Small Back Room is a film directed by the well known team,
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.
The film is about a British bomb defuser and scientist during World
War II. He is hired by the British government to help diffuse
German bombs that have been showing up on the beaches. He is having
trouble with his girlfriend due to his drinking problem and it is
affecting his work. This is all I want to say without spoiling the
plot.
The special features are audio dictations by Michael Powell for his
autobiography, an interview with the film's cinematographer and
audio commentary by film scholar, Charles Barr.
This is a great film and the scenes of the bombs being diffused
will have you on the edge of your seat.
Powell and Pressburger, returning to their roots.Reviewed by Miles D. Moore, 2008-09-01
It was a surprise for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger to
follow up the Technicolor extravaganzas of "Black Narcissus" and
"The Red Shoes" with a throwback to their earlier work--the
black-and-white, tightly focused World War II drama "The Small Back
Room." Perhaps the film served as sort of a palate cleanser before
they moved on to "The Tales of Hoffmann," a film so rococo that it
made "The Red Shoes" look modest. However, "The Small Back Room" is
still a riveting, superbly made, character-driven thriller that is
worth anyone's time.
Set in the early spring of 1943, the film tells the story of Sammy
Rice, a bomb expert sinking into drink and despair after a failed
effort to defuse a bomb caused one of his feet to be blown off,
leaving him in constant agony. In his depression, Sammy is allowing
the political players in his government department (led by a smarmy
Jack Hawkins) to walk all over him, to the sorrow and anger of
Susan, Sammy's secretary and live-in girlfriend. Whether Sammy can
sufficiently regain his confidence to save his job and his
relationship with Susan is the crux of the story, which ends with a
palm-sweatingly suspenseful sequence involving a German UXB on an
English beach.
Powell and Pressburger brought virtually the entire crew from "The
Red Shoes" over to "The Small Back Room," including production
designer Hein Heckroth and composer Brian Easdale, and their
artistry pays off. So does the artistry of Christopher Challis--a
camera operator on "The Red Shoes," promoted to director of
photography here--who provides B&W photography of uncommon
clarity, depth and beauty. Above all, "The Small Back Room" is a
wonderful showcase for the talents of David Farrar and Kathleen
Byron, who were brilliant in "Black Narcissus" and equally fine
here. Farrar's moody, bitter Sammy isn't all that different from
"Black Narcissus's" Mr. Dean, but Byron's sane, kind-hearted Susan
is a 180-degree turn from the crazed Sister Ruth of "Black
Narcissus." The brilliance and variety that Byron demonstrated in
these two roles makes it all the more tragic that she never
achieved true stardom, as she deserved to do. But at least
audiences will always have her performances in "Black Narcissus"
and "The Small Back Room" as testimony to her radiant screen
presence.
The Archers in decline, but still a film worth watchingReviewed by C. O. DeRiemer, 2008-06-25
Sammy Rice (David Farrar) is a first-rate scientist and something
of an expert in defusing bombs. The year is 1943 and the Germans
have starting dropping a new kind of terror weapon on Britain. It's
something small, evidently attractive to children, and explodes
either when it's picked up or just touched. No one is sure because
the three children and one adult who did touch the things were
killed. Rice is asked to investigate by the Army. He says he has to
have an unexploded device to work on; that he'll come as soon as
the Army calls him. Rice, it happens, has also lost his foot and
wears a metal one. He suffers pain from it and is well into a
self-pitying meltdown fueled by alcohol. Susan (Kathleen Byron),
the woman who loves him, understands what he's going through but
sooner or later will have enough of his self-involvement. "Sue,
you'd have such a good life without me," he tells her in a
nightclub. "I take things from you with both hands. I always have.
I always will."
Sammy Rice has to deal with his self-imposed isolation, his
drinking and his unwillingness to face up to the fact that he has
an artificial foot. Through all this, the group of scientists and
managers Rice works with has come up with an anti-tank gun some
feel is ready to sell to the government. He doesn't, but he's not
willing to go against the consensus. Then, deep in an alcoholic
haze, he gets the phone call. Two devices have been discovered. One
is now being worked on by the Army captain who first asked him to
help. It probably goes without saying that soon there is no Army
captain and only one remaining device. Rice leaves for the English
coast where the device is half buried in the sand. What he does
with it will determine not only his life, but will affect his whole
outlook on himself, his worth and his willingness to accept
responsibility.
Sound a little...well, too much? The Small Back Room features some
very good acting, excellent dialogue, one of Michael Powell's
quirky internal surrealistic scenes (as Rice fights his compulsion
to have a drink) and an extremely well-handled and tense final
twenty-five minutes as Rice works to defuse the bomb. On the whole,
though, it seems to me that Powell and Pressburger, after such a
run of great movies they created in the Forties, used The Small
Back Room as a way to step back and let out a long breath. The
movie is by no means a let-down, but the sulky self-pity of Sammy
Rice leaves little room for us to get willingly involved with him.
This is a problem because the movie, despite an exciting premise
with the new-type of German bomb and the excitement of the last
third of the film, is essentially a character study in Rice's
self-pity. Sammy Rice starts out gloomy and unhappy, and he stays
that way throughout the movie until he walks across the sand to see
if he can defuse the bomb. Powell and Pressburger's subversive
humor (a dolt of a governmental minister, a glad-handing arms
manager) is amusing but we still wind up with Rice feeling sorry
for himself.
I think it's fair to say that The Small Back Room marks the coming
decline of Powell and Pressburger. The Tales of Hoffmann was still
to be made, but with that exception every movie following The Small
Back Room marked a decline in the kind of original, unusual
cinematic storytelling that was the hallmark of The Archers. They
had to deal with studio moneymen who gradually assumed control over
the freedom that they had enjoyed with J. Arthur Rank and Alexander
Korda. They, especially Powell, found it increasingly difficult to
find subject matter that excited them. At one point, four years
elapsed before they took on a new project. The Archers last movie
turned out to be something Powell swore he'd never make after all
those Quota Quickies in the Thirties, a programmer. They drifted
apart, still friends, and went their own ways.
For those who admire Powell and Pressburger, The Small Back Room is
well worth having. In addition to Farrar and Byron, both of whom
were in Black Narcissus, there are a number of fine actors to
enjoy, such as Jack Hawkins, Cyril Cusack, Sid James, Leslie Banks,
Michael Gough, Robert Morley and Renee Asherson.
This Criterion release has an excellent DVD transfer. I only
sampled the extras, which include a booklet essay, a commentary, a
video interview with Christopher Challis who worked with Powell and
Pressburger on several of their movies, and an audio excerpt of
Powell's dictations for his autobiography. If you haven't bought
the two volumes yet, I think you'll find A Life in Movies: An
Autobiography and Million Dollar Movie great reading.
Thank goodness for DVD and for Criterion. Michael Powell and Emeric
Pressburger are no more, but we have their greatest films still
with us. Says Challis, "It was a great team and I'm terribly sorry
it packed up."
Offbeat gemReviewed by L. F. Ribeiro, 2007-07-15
Far from being an indicator of the decline of the creative genius of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, The Small Back Room harkens back to the pair's earlier black-and-white period and is an offbeat gem. David Farrar shines as Sammy Rice, a bitter yet sensitive man unsure if he has enough character to accept the things he must and the strength to change what he can in his life. Kathleen Byron (who appeared with Farrar in P&P's Black Narcissus in 1947) plays Susan, a shrewd, strong woman nevertheless deeply in love with a flawed, perhaps failure of a man. Their relationship, suprisingly and refreshingly adult in a period still wrapped in censorship restrictions, is the core of the film as Sammy battles his inner demons and those at his government job as one of the nameless, faceless experts in the "small back room." Full of wonderful character support (Jack Hawkins, Cyril Cusack and a hilarious cameo by Robert Moreley as a vapid government minister) and the famed Powell and Pressburger puckish humor and bursts of fantasy, this is a treat on all fronts. Beware the American released shorter version (UK release is 103 minutes).
