I doubt it was time-compressed, either intentionally or accidentally. Most of the dialog was apparently intended to be rapid-fire. And in some scenes, the brass and various minor supporting actors speak at a normal pace--perhaps to accentuate the contrast with the dialog of the leading actors.
Here's the Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_Planes
Here are some excerpts from the article:
. . . its tone blends a spy thriller with high-tech villains, sophisticated romance and rapid-fire comedy.
C. A. Lejeune called the film "a bright, vigorous little picture, and Mr. Richardson's Major is the brightest thing in it.
Here, Olivier is at the height of the glib, self-conscious acting style of the 15 pictures he had made before his work with Wyler. Olivier writes that it was only then he learned to stop condescending to pictures as a mere paycheck between Shakespeare productions and instead master acting for the camera as its own form.
Leslie Halliwell called it a "lively, lovely thriller distinguished by a droll leading performance.
While noting the matinee value of Olivier, Variety reported that "the acting honors go — and at a gallop — to Ralph Richardson, playing a Scotland Yard eccentric." Variety reviewers also considered it had a "refreshing tongue-in-cheek attitude … Whole thing is bright, breezy and flavorsome."
A final excerpt tends to agree with my opinion that the film suffered from what so many British war films suffered from: way too much talk and far too little action:
Less impressed was film critic John Mosher of The New Yorker, who found in the film "a bigger allotment of very British small talk and that special brand of British whimsy which makes us here think at times that at least one of the clouds over England is this particular kind of humor."
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. -- A. Einstein
reply
share