Film Review
Hammer's bid to break into the American market got off to a flying
start with this grimly realistic crime drama adapted from a play by Leo
Marks, one of the earliest and best examples of film noir the studio
put its name to. The gimmick of casting a charismatic American
actor in the lead role, here Robert Preston, was one that Hammer would
frequently employ in the 1950s to assist its transatlantic
distribution, not that
Cloudburst,
a solid drama, needed any such device to find an American
audience. With the war still fresh in everyone's minds, the
compelling tale of a man unable to adjust his moral code after the
experience of war is one that would have struck a chord on either side
of the Atlantic, and it remains one of Hammer's more interesting and
profound films (as worthy of interest as the studio's
subsequent horror output including
Dracula (1958)
and
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)).
There's a bleakness to this film that is rarely
found in the studio's other films of this era, but there is also a
powerful emotional resonance which suddenly hits home in the devastating final
scene. It also has some great lines: 'Official
channels don't exist. There are only official oceans or official
sewers.'
Cloudburst owes its
sober authenticity to the insights brought to the source play by its author
Leo Marks. During the war, Marks was busily engaged as a senior
cryptographer, running an office in the Special Operations Executive
which supported resistance agents across occupied Europe. Marks
was
au fait not only with the
mechanics of codebreaking but also with the moral issues appertaining
to war, and it is the morality of personal combat, specifically how
this differs between peace- and war-time, that is at the heart of his
play. The film's central character, a dedicated codebreaker
played with admirable conviction by Robert Preston, is a noble but
flawed individual who is incapable of resetting his moral compass after
the war and who consequently believes that to avenge the death of
his wife (an engimatic Elizabeth Sellars) he must deal with the culprits himself.
In wartime, his actions might have been laudable; now they are liable to send him to
the scaffold.
In the character John Graham we see a template for those other morally
self-sufficient protagonists that would feature in much of Hammer's
subsequent output, from the steely-willed
Professor Quatermass
to the diabolically driven scientist Dr Frankenstein, characters who consider
themselves above the morality of civilised society. Graham not
only knowingly operates outside the law, he seems to revel in the
freedom that his supposed moral superiority gives him. He takes a
sadistic pleasure in torturing one of his victims and then murdering
him in cold blood, justifying each of his crimes with the warped
morality that his wartime exploits have left him with.
Cloudburst isn't just a compelling
entertainment, it also touches on some deep philosophical issues - the
inconsistency of human morality and the difficulty of altering one's
personal ethics as circumstances change. Those harbouring under the misconception
that Hammer's films lack depth and real human interest will be surprised by
what this one has to offer.
© James Travers 2015
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
London, 1946. A former resistance operative during the war, John
Graham now runs a code-breaking department that deciphers coded
messages which may result in the prosecution of war criminals.
His pregnant wife Carol is concerned he may be overworking and urges
him to take a break. They are examining the spot in the country
where they intend to build a house when Carol is run over by a car and
killed. Before the car drives off, Graham catches a glimpse of
its driver and passenger, whom he later realises are a pair of
criminals on the run from the police after murdering a night
watchman. Rather than assist the police in catching these two,
Graham embarks on his own private vendetta and uses his special
training to find and punish them. For him, the war is far from
over...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.