Recently Film Four in the UK has been screening vintage British films from the 30s and 40s and this entry directed by Puffin Asquith demonstrates just how superior his early work was compared with that of Carol Reed. Reed in fact tackled a similar subject to this the year previously but his Night Train To Munich is light years away from Freedom Radio which is never risible. Okay, they had ten writers on the project and a leading man and leading lady who today would seem mannered in the extreme but they were surrounded by excellent supporting players such as Raymond Huntley, Ronald Squire, Martita Hunt, Bernard Miles and Katie Johnson, so memorable some fifteen years later in the original The Ladykillers. Reed's screenplay had nothing, for example, to compare with Ronald Squire's droll comeback when asked how he enjoyed his recent trip to America 'I didn't go to America, I went to New York'. Clive Brook manages to personify decency and the outrage felt by ordinary Germans at what they observed going on around them - again Puffin employs a crisp economical montage involving boutonnieres that disappear one by one as do their owners. A fine effort.
Review of The Voice in the Night
