A Two Cities Film, made at D & P Studios, Denham, presented by J. Arthur Rank, released through Columbia Pictures Corp. Not copyrighted in the U.S.A. No New York opening. U.S. release: 11 April 1942. U.K. release: 10 August 1942. Australian release: 23 September 1943 (sic). 8,444 feet. 93½ minutes.SYNOPSIS: British newspaperman tangles with Nazi spies in London during the blitz.COMMENT: Despite some very conventional characters and plot strands in this wartime newspaper yarn, this is a truly remarkable film. Aside from the actuality footage of the London blitz which is skilfully worked into the fabric of the movie itself - horrifying, unbelievable material of human ingenuity, courage, perseverance and insistence on "normalcy" in the face of incredibly wanton destruction, peril and danger - there are a number of astonishing set-pieces including an extended dolly shot of vast crowds of evacuated Dunkirk servicemen at a railway station and a skilfully disorienting tracking shot down a London street in a black-out. The lighting, compositions and camera movement often reveal an imaginative skill far beyond the normal rather humdrum standards of director Harold French. At times indeed the terrifyingly real-life bizarreness of the movie's background overshadows the story - particularly Valerie Hobson's part in it which has been struck from the cliched mould of novice girl reporter makes good (though she does figure in an edge-of-the-seat cliffhanger bit of action which would put any Hollywood serial to shame). Greene is also solidly conventional though he does have opportunities to show his mettle. The other players are likewise predictably cast and serve their roles with the fine exactitudes we might expect, though we should note Ronald Shiner in a small but straight role, and the wonderfully realistic portrait of Frederick Cooper as the belittled Trapes. Production values are amazingly lavish. Although there's plenty of vividly staged action, it is even more for its contemporary insight into London living in the truly horrifying nights of 1941-42, that merits Unpublished Story a top place in British cinema.

That is the motive of British correspondents Valarie Hobson and Richard Greene in this newspaper war drama about the revelation that a supposed group of protesters for peace are actually a front for Nazi spies trying to stir up trouble in England. This takes place during the London blitz when nightly raids and bunkers for the protection of the people still out on the streets during an air raid was a regular occurrence. The blitz scenes are extremely realistic, especially one when Greene rescues Hobson from a phone booth while a nearby building is about to collapse. Basil Radford is excellent as a speaker of the peace convention who learns the truth about his leaders a bit too late. The cinema warned us about the enemy in our own camps many times on-screen, whether through newspaper dramas like this or the adventures of a gambler in "All Through the Night".

Fast and sometimes exciting tale of a newspaper during the London blitz, amid Nazi conspiracies to undermine morale.Richard Greene is the correspondent who makes his way back to his Fleet Street newspaper from Dunkirk and Valerie Hobson is the novice lady reporter who is reassigned from the food column to stories of more substance.One of the subjects is the People for Peace, a small but busy group of men claiming that Hitler actually has the morality of a Buddhist monk or something. One of their henchmen is an almost unrecognizably young Andre Morell, putting on a curious accent. Their motto is "Peace in Our Time." Poor Neville Chamberlain. He could have prevented World War II simply by declaring war on Germany at the Munich meetings.The two intrepid reporters, dashing about the strepitous city, barely escaping the collapse of burning walls, expose the pernicious cabal and fall in love in front of a backdrop of the city in ruins except for the dome of St. Paul's.At the climax, the endearing Scotsman who edits the paper reads tomorrow's lead, which goes something like, "Goering has said he will bomb London flat because it is the heart. Very well. The heart will continue to beat." The reason the line is memorable is not so much for its defiant quality but because, a few years later, the Allies were demolishing one German city after another and the ruins were papered over with signs proclaiming, "Unsere Mauern brechen, unsere Herzen nicht," precisely the same sentiment and a similar analogy. And in fact the post-war Strategic Bombing Survey found that bombs were very good at tearing up cities but poor at breaking citizens' morale.But let's get back to Valerie Hobson. She's tall, slender, beautiful, and oozes elegance. She looks rather like Cate Blanchett except that she lacks Blanchett's extraordinary eyes. Richard Greene is adequate as the heroic reporter who helps save Hobson's bacon from the likes of that villainous, scowling Andre Morell.It's not a big budget movie but the production values are high enough so that we're not distracted by substandard sets. And there's hardly a dull moment -- or a brutal one. No scenes of battle and only a bit of gunfire towards the end. And a nice, familiar cast, with Basil Radford and Miles Malleson in support. Sometimes it seemed that the British film industry had only half a dozen principal performers during the war, and no more than double that number into the 50s.Other movies have been made about the blitz but they're either sentimental stories of worried families, like "Mrs. Miniver" or semi-autobiographical and more realistic accounts like John Boorman's "Hope and Glory." This one avoids sentimentality almost completely in favor of a sort of "training film" approach, only instead of "Assembly And Use Of The Sten Gun," it's "Optimal Responses to Bombing." That last scene, with the two lovers posed against a dim sun rising over a ruined urban landscape is touching and informative. It's a useful reminder of just how destructive war can be. America hasn't fought a war on its own ground for 150 years.A reminder might stimulate our thoughts a bit more, at least among those of us who seem so anxious to kill them all and let God sort them out. The only people who seem more warlike than those who have never known war are those who have never known anything else. I blame hormones. We have to get rid of all that testosterone. Imagine if all the men in the world were turned overnight into fairies. All they would do is try to insult each other to death.

An English journalist just back from Dunkirk writes a story blasting a London-based peace- in-our-time organization, but the story is killed by a government agency. Are there Nazi sympathizers or just cautious bureaucrats in the agency? Is the peace group led by innocent dupes or by ruthless Nazi agents? The reporter intends to find out.The movie isn't A-list, but it's better than a programmer. It's a craftsman-like piece of work. In feature roles are two first-rate British character actors, Roland Culver (The Pallisers, Dead of Night, On Approval) and Miles Malleson (Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Man in the White Suit).