The Voice in the Night

An okay film. Just about watchable. Pretty silly plot though and having all Germans speaking with a clipped British accent seems very dated these days.

No it's not a great film and the acting isn't brilliant, but the film carries a serious message. We see what happens when a regime built on violence and intimidation takes over a civilised nation. In fact the starkness of the film reminds one of George Orwell's 1984. Nothing much has changed.

I would only confirm 'Igenlode Wordsmith's' review from 2006. I also read the Radio Times review, but this time by David Parkinson (as printed in July 2020). Parkinson comments, "the rest of the cast are simply dreadful as they spout platitudes in clipped stage accents that are totally unsuited to their middle European characters. Clive Brook and Derek Farr are embarrassingly earnest as the heads of a pirate radio station, but even worse is Diana Wynyard's ludicrously naive collaborator." This is an overly ungenerous review, to put it mildly. It has quite a taut plot and, despite the clipped accents, the cast put in a more than competent performance. At 90 mins, you will not regret devoting some time to viewing it.

Effective wartime propaganda which takes the unusual step of painting most of its German civilian characters as decent and humane, and even has a heroic Nazi amongst the usual stereotypical villainous types. The often wooden Clive Brook gives a surprisingly effective performance.

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.

FREEDOM RADIO is another British propaganda movie of the Second World War, but at least it remembers to be entertaining. This time around the setting is Nazi Germany, where a number of good-hearted people become disillusioned by the rise of the Nazi party and their heavy handed ways, so they set up pirate radio broadcasts in order to combat the endless propaganda of the Nazi state. It's a little odd to see familiar British character actors like Raymond Huntley and Bernard Miles playing Germans without a hint of an accent, but the story feels fresher and more original than most and the characters are sympathetic. Things build to an appropriately moving climax.