Though not without its merits, The Small Back Room (1949) is an odd film to take the position of being Michael Powell’s and Emeric Pressurger’s final work from their glorious period of the 1940s. It’s small. It’s largely straightforward. It’s in black and white. The main thing—apart from one DT’s nightmare scene—that establishes it clearly as their work is that it plays and feels like a much more recent film than its year. Otherwise, it’s a well made WWII story about a bomb expert, Sammy Rice (David Farrar), who’s been called in to deal with a particularly nasty new kind of bomb. But that’s only part of the story. The film is as much or more about Sammy’s battles with alcoholism, the pain of an amputated foot, and his sense of being unworthy of his girlfriend (Kathleen Byron). There are nice touches, locations (including Stonehenge) and performances (Sidney James in a non-comedic role as a sympathetic pub owner is a standout) throughout, but after the triple whammy of A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947), and The Red Shoes (1948), it seems rather ordinary.
Classic World Cinema by Courtyard Gallery will present The Small Back Room Friday, March 21, at 8 p.m. at Phil Mechanic Studios, 109 Roberts St., River Arts District (upstairs in the Railroad Library). Info: 273-3332, www.ashevillecourtyard.com
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