The Small Back Room

Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of its first release, the Powell and Pressburger WW2 set film about political intrigue and psychological drama. The 4K restoration will be available on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital from 3rd June and will have a premiere at BFI Southbank on 28th May

Starring David Farrar and Kathleen Byron - two actors who worked with P&P on Black Narcissus in 1940. Farrar portrays Sammy Rice, the finest bomb disposal expert in the army who was injured during the war. He begins an affair with Byron's Susan, a secretary in the war office. However, Sammy is haunted by his failings as a man owing to the injuries he has sustained, and his ability to be a lover to Susan due to his inferiority complex. He drowns his sorrows in whiskey nightly to the detriment of his ability to perform a great service to the continuing war effort.

Nazi Germany is still dropping booby-bombs on Britain, a bomb has exploded causing catastrophic results and another has been found which has not yet exploded. This opportunity provides Sammy with a chance of retribution and to face down his demons.

Based upon the 1943 novel of the same name by Nigel Balchin, the film was received as another win for The Archers, and when released in 1949 it was marked as a slow down for the team after the triumph and masterwork that was The Red Shoes in 1948.

Think of the Coens' A Serious Man or Scorese's Bringing Out The Dead; films that are not as highly thought of in the director's oeuvre yet they are deeply personal and intuitive to the sense of their overall body of work. In The Small Back Room, P&P look at an individual and the psychological complexity that the war will have upon individuals and how it seeped into everyday life and following on from Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend in 1945, this is a serious depiction of alcoholic dependency.

Yet there are archetypes of P&P motifs here - location shooting, issues of class and status, off the wall moments such as Sammy's final descent and lush production design. A film that that serves as a reminder that even a flawed film by masters can still maintain attention and suspense.

Released by Studiocanal in a new restoration led by Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker (Powell's widow) from the Film Foundation. The digital release features documentaries on restoring The Small Back Room, Kevin MacDonald on the Small Back Room, Ian Christie 'Defusing the Archers', an audio commentary by film scholar Charles Barr and an interview with the film's cinematographer Christopher Challis.

Out from June 3rd from Studiocanal

KING AND COUNTRY

Brilliant new 4K restoration of anti-war film King and Country (1964) by Joseph Losey

This mostly unknown British film by acclaimed American director, Joseph Losey, is another collaboration with renowned British thespian Dirk Bogarde. Their partnership bore great riches together and this is there little film but the one that speaks the loudest in terms of relevancy to today's modern age. 

The film follows the famous anti-war narrative familiar in literature from Journey's End and Catch-22, the futility of war is apparent for all to see, and in the depiction of Private Hamp (Tom Courtenay), a deserter from the front-lines during the Great War, you have another anti-hero. 

Dirk Bogarde portrays Captain Hargreaves, a lawyer, sent to defend Hamp as he faces court-martial for desertion with the threat of execution by firing squad. Hamp just wants to go home as many wanted to do no doubt, and yet the stigmatism of cowardice is thrown around by those in command, those who are not on the front-line.

Hamp has his reasons, he volunteered on a dare, he is the only survivor of his group remaining and his wife back home has been unfaithful in his absence; and yet the political machine chooses to use Hamp as an example before another futile offensive manoeuvre in the quagmire of the first world war somewhere in France. 

The film is set for the most part in real-time, and shares a lot of cinematic DNA with Kubrick's Paths of Glory where Kirk Douglas defended deserters and the squalor and downtrodden mess of the trenches is clear to see as rain constantly falls on young men fighting for their lives and freedom in or near No Man's Land.

The new restoration gives the film a real shine and sheen to these sad sights and Bogarde plays Hargreaves in a fine line between right and just and true and sceptic. When a superior officer questions the defence of mental health, stating, 'Is he a lunatic?' it puts a black mark on all proceedings and how nearly a hundred years later, male mental health only came to fruition when men were battened down in their households during a global pandemic with little or not much to do.

'I just wanted to get away from the guns sir'

Courtenay is quite astounding in the role of Hamp (he won Best Actor in Venice that year) and this was in the purple patch of his run of performances in the Angry Young Man era from The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and Billy Liar to this performance. His heartfelt and honest portrayal reminded this viewer of Ed Norton's debut in Primal Fear when his role depicted a fugue like state in a post-traumatic stress event.

Bogarde holds court himself as the true star of proceedings akin to a George Clooney in those days as he cross-examines witnesses such as Leo McKern as the doctor who does not notice the effects of shell shock upon Hamp. Bogarde when facing a jury who have already made their decision in terms of Hamp's verdict shows that justice can be just as ineffective as war on occasion.

Timely and timeless, this film serves as a constant reminder that the real cost of war is the loss of innocence.

Special features include an interview with Tom Courtenay about the film; an archive interview with Dirk Bogarde from 1964 and Behind the Scenes stills

King and Country is released by Studiocanal UK on Blu-ray/DVD on 6th November