NR | 1h 46min | Drama | 1952
Michael Powell once said that his film with fellow writer-director Emeric Pressburger, set in World War II Britain, is about “a dying man who discovers a reason to live.”
Glum British military scientist Sammy Rice (David Farrar) can’t join the front lines because of an artificial leg from a previous nondisclosed injury or disability. Limping on his prosthetic and resigned to the back room, he plods away at a research unit that’s, in effect, a crutch for Britain’s beleaguered war effort. He’d rather drink away his lingering pain than marry the woman he loves, Susan (Kathleen Byron), a secretary at the unit. Despite her affections, he believes she pities rather than loves him.
Germany starts dropping mysterious bombs on Britain. They don’t explode until touched, often by unsuspecting innocents. Britain’s army wants to trace a live one and defuse it so they can crack and counter its mechanism. Politicians and bureaucrats jockeying for sinecures, unconcerned over lives at stake, resent Rice for being free of military accountability, but grudgingly accept that he’s pivotal to their problem-solving. If the army’s a bomb, Rice’s back room makes it tick.
Unexploded Bombs
When three children and a man are killed after touching the new bombs, Britain commissions Rice to help. Meanwhile, Susan, fed up with Rice’s irascible self-loathing, hopes that leaving him will force him to find value in himself, and his work, if not in their future together. Suddenly, the army isolates two objects on a beach, seemingly as harmless as the vacuum flasks they resemble. The officer who commissioned Rice dies trying to defuse it. Called urgently to the location, can Rice find new purpose amid a seemingly pervasive pointlessness?The beauteous, birdlike Byron brings some of the virtuous fragility of Joan Fontaine to this role; it just so happened that they were born (and died) about four years apart.
Farrar is exceptional as a moody Rice. At first, he can barely cheer up a troubled colleague. If he smiles, it’s only in sarcasm or spite. He hides behind alcoholism and pain, then realizes that he ought to know better. Later, when he takes charge of his fate, he’s humming and whistling to himself, trying to make a difference to his team. The same way the bomb goes off only when touched, the bottle cripples Rice only when touched. If he walks by, merely stealing glances at it, it has no hold on him. Its grip closes in the moment he touches it.
In another scene, Rice’s unit has just been informed that a government minister is arriving for an inspection. As they rehearse for the arrival, one scientist works up a phony experiment to “amuse” the minister, while another pretends to be him, asking “intelligent” questions. With all the gravitas he can muster, Rice proceeds to demonstrate the dud, with fire and smoke. That’s meant to dazzle. But when the minister walks in, despite Rice’s flourishes, there’s neither fire nor smoke. Commiserative, the minister smiles, “Oh, I expect you’ll get it right soon.”
Maturing Masculinity
Powell and Pressburger suggest a romantic, but no less real, vision of masculinity. They ask: Of what use is a bomb if it doesn’t go off? A bomb doesn’t become a bomb only when it explodes, and it doesn’t cease to be a bomb if it lies dormant, waiting. It remains a bomb until it’s defused.Rice’s prosthetic makes him feel less of a man and less worthy of a woman’s love, just as a colleague’s stammer makes him feel similarly inadequate.
Rice tells Susan, “You could have such a good time without me. I take things from you with both hands. I always have. I always will.” But her faith in him spurs him to believe in himself. His prosthetic isn’t the cause, but it’s certainly an excuse for his victimhood. It allows him to wallow in ingratitude, sullenness, self-pity, and alcoholism.
As Rice takes responsibility for his life, neither his limp nor his pain vanishes. Oh, but his stride? It takes on a new meaning, a new power, and a new purpose.
