The War Office Films A Spy Story

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 173, 16 October 1942, Page 4

The War Office Films A Spy Story

ereony is familiar with those posters " They talked . .. This is what happened," but perhaps the best propaganda'on the theme of dangerous talk in war time is the feature-length British film " The Next of Kin". It is also an exciting. spy melodrama. Made originally as a training film for the Fighting ‘forces only, it is now being shown to civilians. It is, illustrated here by "stills", and is reviewed by our critic.

\WHEN the theatre. lights went up. and.I looked around at the preview audience, I-caught myself wondering if there were any spies in

the house! It was, I am sure, an audience of .irreproachable. integrity, but The Next of Kin has that kind of effect on you, and I suppose it could be said that to the extent that it does have that effect, to the extent that it makes you suspicious of your neighbour, distrustful of the man béside you in the tram or at ‘your elbow in the pub, and accordingly as it puts a curb upon your tongue, this film will be serving its primary purpose, which is certainly not entertainment. For The Next of Kin is no ordinary

film; it was made in secrecy in Great Britain as a War Office training film for members of the Fighting Forces, to impress them with the danger of giving away vital information to the enemy by idle conversation. But again, it is no ordinary instructional film; it was produced by Michael Balcon, of Ealing Studios, with a cast composed partly of professional players (such as Nova Pilbeam, Mary Clare, Stephen Murray), partly of regular members of the Forces (including commando units). Then the Brasshats looked at the film and saw that it was good-too good to be shown solely to the troops. So now this fulllength feature has been released for public exhibition, and I think you will agree that, while it certainly serves its primary purpose of educating people to be oysters, it also manages to be very entertaining in the process, * * * BY entertaining I mean that it holds your interest throughout. It is a tough film, it pulls few punches, but it is human, competent, and authentic, And it has a story which is as ingenious and as exciting as any purely: fictional melodrama but which at the same time is relevant to the world we are unfortunately living in. This is, in fact, a war film that comes pretty close to the ideal of topical entertainment about real situations and real people that I have frequently expounded in these pages. The title is derived from the familiar War Office announcement of casualties, "The next of kin have been informed," (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) and the story shows what careless talk does to a commando raid against a German submarine base in Occupied France. The objective of the raid is, of course, kept a close secret from the British troops being trained to carry it out. But a few soldiers let slip apparently harmless information. One young officer tells his girl friend, a strip-tease artist, that he is being moved away for special training, and the fact gets to the ears of German Intelligence through their spies in Britain. Another young British soldier tells his girl something: even he doesn't know what it means, but the Germans do, This is perhaps the most arresting feature of the whole story; that not a single British soldier knowingly gives away vital information, but when the scattered pieces of the jig-saw puzzle are eventually fitted together by the Germans the pattern of the raid is complete. So, when the attack is launched, the essential element of surprise has been lost, and though the British partly succeed in their objective, casualties are needlessly heavy. * k * N English critic has argued that films of this type, ignoring the conventional romantic values of the cinema, may in time have a profound effect on picturegoing tastes. This is an interesting viewpoint, which I could not, however, accept without qualification. After all, as even the few scenes on these pages indicate, The Next of Kin doesn’t completely ignore the Boy-Meets-Girl theme, while as a spy story it is the Mata Hari of them all. I should be more inclined to argue that films of this particular Don’t-Talk type, if duplicated overmuch, might have a rather far-reaching and not wholly desirable effect on everyday life. For the moral of The Next of Kin is not merely that you should not give away vital information: it is almost | that you should not talk about anything at all, since you never know what may be vital information nor who may be listening. In wartime, security is a first consideration, naturally, and The Next of Kin is a powerful weapon to guard that security. At the same time, the community can only function on a basis of mutual trust, and as I remarked (not altogether flippantly) at the beginning, this film is so successful in its propa- ganda that its tendency is to encourage you not merely to keep your mouth shut but to look askance at your neighbour, And the mere fact that Hollywood panders so profitably to our spy-hunting instincts would suggest that human nature doesn’t need much encouraging along those lines. Where, if you like, does Security cease and Spy-Mania and Melodrama begin? So, while I stand up to applaud The Next of Kin, I shudder to think what a whole series of equally potent films on this theme might do to us. We’d soon hardly dare even to tell anybody that our potatoes are coming up nicely, thank you, for fear that this might have some dangerous significance to the enemy.

G.

M.