Boys in Brown

Serving time at a borstal institution after various infractions that do not merit prison, a last chance to reform themselves.

Weakness is the prevailing character trait, they are easily led astray and highly credulous in their ignorance, at the root of which is cowardice in the face of life.

These points are made evident in the boys, a shiftless mob of scapegraces weak as argumentative critics at a rather tentative festival, and so oddly lacking in that criminal allure critics see themselves as possessing that critics have not by and large taken a liking to the accuracy and honesty of the portrait drawn here, not even English critics young or old (“boring and unpersuasive non-documentary fiction”, says Halliwell’s Film Guide, “in Britain’s most tiresome style”).

The Glass Tomb

“Murder, murder, murder!”

“A sad business, but it’s a living.”

A hunger artist on the rubble of London. Thereby depend many considerations.

The Glass Cage in UK.

Leonard Maltin, “bizarre carnival backgrounds”. Britmovie, “fragmented B-thriller.”

The Man Who Was Nobody

He buys a perfect diamond with a rubber cheque and absconds. A policeman finds him dead beside the Thames.

Simply a matter of a floating roulette game run by a fence.

Neither of these two is the title character.

An Edgar Wallace Mystery.

Battle Beneath the Earth

The Pacific War.

The point of departure is identical to that of Quatermass and the Pit (dir. Roy Ward Baker) in the European Theater.

The cocktail bar of Invasion USA (dir. Alfred E. Green). “I know, Pasadena, but this is an emergency!”

Red is green, and green is red;
The East is sunrise, and the West is dead.

The problem is defined as meeting the enemy on his own terms, then not being a prisoner of those terms (cf. Yates’ Murphy’s War).

“Within 48 hours, your country will be a desolate wilderness.”

For the English these events transpired on the other side of the globe, hence the metaphor of the title. For the Cold War as a continuation of the Second World War, cf. Dmytryk’s Soldier of Fortune.

Harry Gilroy of the New York Times, “without the blessing of Peking, this general has a scheme involving a laser rock borer that threatens to undermine, literally, America. One hears strange sounds beneath the streets after viewing this thriller. Let’s hope the sounds are only from the subway.” Variety, “Montgomery Tully’s direction maintains an appropriately fast pace.” Film4, “this might get away with being an entertaining piece of trash were it not for the fact that it seems born out of genuine right-wing paranoia, a little red menace fantasy piece that goes awry. It is not funny enough to be taken ironically, or committed enough to make any kind of statement.” Time Out, “a hilarious example of Reds-under-the-bed literalism... sadly, the film itself is neither as naive nor as adventurous as its premise.” TV Guide, “this red scare film”. Dan Pavlides (All Movie Guide), “gets by on its ‘camp’ appeal.” Paul Brenner (Rovi), “rabid anti-communist science fiction tract.”