Cottage to Let

Interesting war time film that starts off like an Ealing comedy full of eccentric English characters but becomes darker and more akin to a Hitchcock thriller.

It's easy to imagine people not as easily guessing who are the baddies in 1941. Even now, it's done well enough to make me unsure for the first third or so.

The only thing I understood was the bowling with nazis as skittles. The scream John Mills let out at the end sure was something too.

Fund campy stuff['till the final act

Great cast with a fairly good chemistry for a cottage full of suspects. This had all the ingredients to be a classic British hunt for bad guys, but there was something dubious about the whole story which just didn't work for me. Writing at fault, along with fairly routine direction where the stage acting dominated. Watching it in succession with majority of the UK output the same year, Cottage to Let (1941) comes across as one of those with the most potential which was fumbled the most.

A stodgy staginess unfortunately hurts an otherwise intriguing gaggle of characters (including Mills in a very uncharacteristic performance). The usually charming Sim seems to be spinning his wheels here, which makes his performance frustrating and a millstone round the neck of the plot. A shame, as the finale is quite gripping and exciting, and some of the wartime British propaganda is well-handled.

Not bad. John Mills character death is something special.