Tag: Allies

Pressure

Pressure

Director – Anthony Maras – 2026 – UK, France – Cert. 12a – 100m

*****

Days before the proposed Allied D-Day landings in 1944, the Scots meteorologist in charge becomes convinced that it should be postponed due to impending bad weather – out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, September 9th

Taking leave from his heavily pregnant wife Liz (Tamsin Topolski), due in hospital imminently for the birth, Scots meteorologist RAF Gp Capt. James Stagg (Andrew Scott) travels by military car to Southwick House, the stately home requisitioned for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) under General Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser), where he meets his own liaison officer Andrew Carter (Jojo Macari) and, in what is to be his office, MTC First Lt. Kay Summersby (a nicely understated Kerry Condon), Eisenhower’s private secretary. All communications with the General go through her.

From their first encounter – three days from the proposed D-Day landing on Monday morning, when USAAF Col. Krick (Chris Messina) and his weather room staff are improvising a version of The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B with a piano – Stagg is less than impressed with his American counterpart. Krick boasts that he not only correctly predicted the weather for Eisenhower ahead of various military battles in North Africa and elsewhere, but also did the same for David O.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

De Gaulle: Resistance
(De Gaulle: Résistance)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date August 28 2026
No Comments on De Gaulle: Resistance
(De Gaulle: Résistance)

De Gaulle: Resistance (De Gaulle: Résistance)

Director – Antonin Baudry – 2025 – France – Cert. 15 – 160m
*****
Feeling betrayed by France signing an armistice with the Germans in 1940, General De Gaulle leaves for London to set up and command alternative Free French forces – first part of a two-part movie is out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 28th

1940. In the brief but decisive Fall of France, De Gaulle (Simon Abkariam) – later described by a detractor as a “petty general” – overtakes a French tank column to see for himself what the Germans are doing (after an aide bringing news admits he’s not actually seen it for himself). With his military car under tank fire, De Gaulle uses his arm to signal his driver when and how to change direction so that he can accurately assess the situation before the French tanks turn up and destroy the German tank.

Days later, he is horrified to see Marshall Pétain (Alain Libolt) sign an armistice with Germany. As far as De Gaulle is concerned, Pétain and Admiral Darlan (Matthieu Kassovitz), who supports Pétain, do not speak for France. De Gaulle with the one aide prepared to accompany him leaves for London hoping to enlist the support of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Simon Russell-Beale) who gives him a nightly broadcasting slot on BBC radio and a house in Hampstead.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

The Small Back Room

Directors – Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger – 1949 – UK – Cert. PG – 106m

*****

In London during World War Two, a back room boffin and bomb disposal man struggles with alcoholism – 4K restoration played at BFI Southbank on Tuesday, May 28th prior to release on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital on Monday, June 3rd

This black and white, post-war era drama isn’t the first film that comes to mind when people think about Powell and Pressburger – it was made immediately after what today are regarded as three of their best colour features – A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) and their arguable masterpiece The Red Shoes (1948). And that was preceded by one of their finest black and white works, “i know where i’m going!” (1945).

In many ways, The Small Back Room couldn’t be more different. There’s a marvellous sense of whimsy about those films, even if the later ones are intense and savage in places. Like Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes – and, for that matter, Powell’s late solo masterpiece Peeping Tom (1960), an intensity lies at the heart of The Small Back Room.

Gone are the light, airy spaces of the earlier films, their sense of the outdoors expanse (and, in The Red Shoes, the expanded landscapes of the eponymous ballet sequence within the film).… Read the rest

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