FREEDOM RADIO (AKA "A Voice in the Night") 1941This production is an early WW2 British propaganda film set just before the start of the war.Clive Brook plays a doctor who just happens to be on of Adolf Hitler's personal medical team. Brook is married to a successful stage actress, Diana Wynard. Also in the mix here is Wynard's brother, John Penrose, and Gestapo man, Raymond Huntley.The Nazi Party has been in control for 6 years and the country is falling deeper under Hitler's grip. Brook and a group of friends from his school days meet for drinks every couple of weeks. It seems that every meeting there are fewer and fewer friends showing up. The men are running afoul of various Government edicts and are ending up in the camps. Brook is growing more annoyed with the direction Germany is going.Matters come to a head when his priest friend, Morland Graham is killed while being arrested. One of the SS types making the arrest was his wife, Wynard's brother, John Penrose. Brook has had enough and decides to set up a resistance group.The small group of close friends and like-minded types set up a mobile radio broadcaster. They use this to hit the airwaves spreading the truth on the Nazi machine. The Gestapo types are increasingly hot under the collar over their inability to catch the "Freedom Radio" crew.The main reason that they can stay ahead of the Nazis, is that their radio is onboard a small motor launch. They are always on the move which prevents the Gestapo from getting a radio position fix. The group pulls a big move and sabotage one of Hitler's speeches. This however results in the death of one of the group.Brook's wife, Wynard, is flattered by the attentions of the Party and accepts a political appointment. She cannot understand Brook's growing dislike of the regime.The Gestapo pulls out all the stops and finally corners Brook and Wynard, who has now joined her husband. The two are shot dead and the end of the "Freedom Radio" is announced over the airwaves. The surviving members of the group are however soon back on the air continuing the struggle.This quite watchable film was put out when the British were still for the most part, on the losing end of the conflict. The acting is acceptable, though Brook is a tad too stiff lipped for me. He always reminded me of the British version of American actor, Richard Dix.Worth a look if you can find it.

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.

This film is currently turning up regularly on Film4 in the UK. It's still worth watching for a flavour of the sort of stuff bring shown during the second world war. Not too propagandist - in fact most of the bad things shown proved to be fact when the war was won.Incidentally, one reviewer seems to think that the doctor was German - he was in fact Austrian (like Mr. Hitler!).I didn't realise that the action was taking place in Austria as one reviewer tells us.Like others I had no problem with the actors not trying to speak with German accents. I prefer this to half the cast speaking the Queen's (or should it be King's) English and all the 'baddies' speaking with 'evil' German accents.At the date of this comment the film is appearing on Film4.

This film has a lot to say about to what extent the allied powers knew about the horrors of the Nazi regime by 1940. The "cleared for general viewing" notice that appears just before this film starts adds a small something to this film now.It tells its story of a decent doctor in Nazi Germany effectively. No explicit violence is used - yet its remarkable how powerful a bullet-riddled door or a Nazi thug approaching a young girl for "assistance" about her grandmother can be.