School for Secrets (1946)

Did you know that the word “boffin” was originally military slang and had more to do with a puffin that a scientist? Well you would after a few moments of this light-hearted wartime adventure that follows a group of top secret inventors who are charged with finding a way of creating a portable radar set that can be placed in airborne aircraft. Sent to a remote RAF installation, “Prof. Heatherville” (Ralph Richardson) leads quite an eclectic team of colleagues amidst quite a bit of scepticism as to why they are not all out at the front and not sitting in a drawing room having tea! Things become decidedly more dangerous when they discover that the Nazis have stolen a bit of a technological march on the Brits, and so they must embark on a trip across the channel and appropriate their technology. What chance they can succeed and get it back without getting it wet? I found Richardson to be a bit wooden here, but with the usually reliable Raymond Huntley and John Laurie there to amiably shore things up, and with David Tomlinson leading an host of other familiar British faces, this rolls along entertainingly enough. With the war having only recently finished when this hit the cinemas, you can see some attempts have been made to balance the sensitivities of something still quite raw with some stoic humour that was fairly prevalent in films made in the UK throughout the conflict. It has Peter Ustinov, quite literally, written all over it - his sense of humour being a touch more cerebral and less slapstick, which I prefer. It’s a bit slow to get started, but once up and running it marries some fun characterisations with some more serious aspects of WWII whilst illustrating just how important these unheralded backroom boys were in achieving victory - and how idle talk could cost lives!