David Farrar battles the bottle and the Bosch in this sober Powell-Pressburger production about a bitter WW2 explosives expert. Adroit and dry without a music score, it has a hard time balancing itself with each of the demons getting in the way of the other.
The Germans are dropping small thermos like explosives along the coast and kids are picking them up and dying. Cynical Sammy Rice (Farrar), a bomb expert is faced with attempting to diffuse these things properly but suffers from dreadful pain due to an amputated foot. Battling alcoholism he finds himself faced with more than one dark night of the soul.
Hour of Glory (aka The Small Back Room) is an off beat war story on the home front with a very flawed protagonist. Farrar is outstanding as is Kathy Byron, his suffering savior but the two pressing issues they are dealing with serve only to interrupt each other.
There are some outstanding surreal moments as Rice struggles with his alcohol addiction and the pair get some severe digs at pretentious bureaucrats (an absolutely hilarious uncredited cameo from Robert Morely) at those living on the comfy home front, slurping soup in private clubs while boorishly trying to protect their turf in meetings that go nowhere. Watering each situation down with interruption, though, Hour seems like hours.
The Germans are dropping small thermos like explosives along the coast and kids are picking them up and dying. Cynical Sammy Rice (Farrar), a bomb expert is faced with attempting to diffuse these things properly but suffers from dreadful pain due to an amputated foot. Battling alcoholism he finds himself faced with more than one dark night of the soul.
Hour of Glory (aka The Small Back Room) is an off beat war story on the home front with a very flawed protagonist. Farrar is outstanding as is Kathy Byron, his suffering savior but the two pressing issues they are dealing with serve only to interrupt each other.
There are some outstanding surreal moments as Rice struggles with his alcohol addiction and the pair get some severe digs at pretentious bureaucrats (an absolutely hilarious uncredited cameo from Robert Morely) at those living on the comfy home front, slurping soup in private clubs while boorishly trying to protect their turf in meetings that go nowhere. Watering each situation down with interruption, though, Hour seems like hours.