Cottage to Let (1943)

This all-too busy spy drama is a mixture of clever comedy and patriotic propaganda, as Nazi's are discovered in the oddest of places. Characters assumed to be bad are actually good, and vice versa. Certain other loyalties are revealed to be up in the air. Sometimes it is all a bit too much, but there's plenty of intrigue to keep you hooked. At times, it is a bit all over the map as to where it is going and what the script is talking about, but then the excitement starts up again, and you are back on the right road. This really hits its mark in the last five minutes when the villain finds himself cornered and manages to outwit pretty much everybody around them. Almost Hitchcock-like in nature, there is a fine cast of British acting vets, lead by Leslie Banks, John Mills and most notably, Alastair Sim in a way which you won't expect to see him. A fast- talking kid also deserves a lot of credit, giving a performance that seems so natural you would think that the producers just grabbed some teenager off the street and threw a script into his hand.

"Cottage to let" borrows heavily from the works of such popular British novelists of the 1930s as John Buchan,Dornford Yates and "Sapper".Kidnapped scientists,plucky schoolboys,cold -eyed detectives,dastardly German spies and pretty girls with summer dresses and wide-brimmed hats filled their pages.Now considered "Fascist",racist","imperialist"and probably several other "ists" I've never heard of,in more sensible times they were thought of as "good reads",nothing more,nothing less. In the movie the inventor of a secret bombsight is kidnapped by dastardly German spies and saved by the intervention of a plucky schoolboy and a cold - eyed detective. There is a splendidly Hitchcockian Auction scene where Mr John Mills as an injured RAF pilot picks up a warming pan by the handle and asks "What's this - a banjolele?"thus encapsulating in one word the whole era. Mr Alistair Sim is a sardonic Scottish detective,Miss Jeanne de Casalis (on the wireless as Mrs Shufflewick/Pennyfeather) splendidly dotty as the spooneristic posh lady. Young master George Cole is a role model for schoolboys carving Spitfires from bits of firewood during the blackout. Thoroughly enjoyable wartime entertainment at the expense of the dastardly Germans(sorry,our European partners - oops!I now await the midnight knock on the door)

An enjoyable piece of British wartime entertainment, probably to be appreciated more now than by audiences at the time, (who would have found it very 'stagey' and lacking in action, I suspect). The plot is nothing in particular and its stage origins are all too apparent in the set locations, which cover the cottage of the title acting as a lodging house, home for evacuated children from London and a military hospital (????) whilst, up at 'the Big House', there is a 'top-secret' research laboratory, (which you know is 'top secret' as one of the (numerous) doors has a sliding panel in it),(but which actually seems to have more people entering and leaving it in the course of the film than the lounge of the 'Dog and Duck'), country gentry residence and garden fête venue. The real strength of the film, though, is its very strong cast. Leslie Banks is quite watchable on as the lead and John Mills is his usual, (for the period), photogenic, brylcreemed RAF fighter pilot hero, (or IS he?), who delivers in the usual sound manner. George Cole makes his first film appearance as one of two Cockney scamps evacuated to the 'cottage', (although the other one disappears from view entirely after the first five minutes!), and one can already see him mentally in a mini-sheepskin coat and with a cigarillo in hand as he begins his apprenticeship for greater glories to come in his career. Alastair Sim is, as usual, extremely good value for money and always watchable. The REAL star, though, I thought, was Jeanne De Casalis as the dotty 'Lady of the Manor', showing marvellous comic timing, interacting with all the rest of the cast flawlessly, (catch her expression when the little girl who has just handed her a bouquet of flowers at the opening of the fête wants it back!), and having me in stitches with her spoonerisms, ("Are you the lad with the manor? I'm sorry, I meant the man with the ladder?"), and, above all, her speech opening the fête; ("In the words of our dear Prime Minister, never was so much owed by so few to so many"). Somehow, one just cannot see film-makers of the time doing the same to speeches of their leader in the Kremlin! I shall certainly watch out for any other films starring this lady.

From the jaunty opening scenes to the thrilling ending, you could be forgiven for thinking 'Cottage To Let' was made during the post war period. But this film was released in 1941, when the outcome of the war was still in the balance.The cast reflects the wealth of talent available in the British Film Industry at this time and for two decades onwards. Not a false note is struck: Jeannie De Casalis makes me laugh out loud playing the dotty wife (check out her introduction speech for John Mills at the fête). Leslie Banks turns in a precise low key performance. He is an antidote to all the eccentric and unbalanced scientists that were/are the staple of cinema-land. Michael Wilding is urbane and, in his scenes, a good foil for a crumpled Alistair Sim, or the intense and faintly menacing John Mills.Sim, of course, had managed to get his protégé George Cole the part of Ronald. Cole had (I think) already played this role on the stage, but took to the sound stage like a fish to water. He moved and acted as if born to boom and camera. In an idle moment compare young George as Ronald with middle-aged George as Arthur Daley in TV's Minder. It's all there: the sideway looks, aggrieved voice, controlled energy, sheer believable and likable personality.The film scores on all points for me. The script is realistic and economical, the supporting cast firmly wedded into the few sub-plots. Even the sets, one or two seem to have migrated from other films, are splendid and evocative. And the final denouement is probably one of the most menacing in wartime film, if not the wettest.