Watched this earlier today on Film 4, John Mills death was one of the most ridiculous pieces of "acting" I've ever seen! Lots of comedy value, unfortunately I think it was unintentional. Enjoyed the film overall though.
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Yes, I too enjoyed the film, especially Alastair Sim. Completely agree wth you about John Mills. Massive over acting, it became a caricature.
By todays standards, perhaps.
Being a propaganda film the baddies have to be really evil. Ideally they start by pretending to be cuddly and loveable and then change to being a really nasty piece of work. Ideally you need the audience to be aware of this throughout the film.
In this respect Mills does a fine job. Compare it with Sim's character. Honest, fair, heroic but ruthlessly efficient in the face of the enemy. Whereas Mills is cowardly and evil and thinks only of himself. Classic stuff!
Mills death does seem overly long, but it had to somehow unnerve the audience.
As it was the climatic ending - the 'evil' agent pretending to be the brave hero.
The little 'weird' scream at the end was to 'probably' show he was at heart a coward.
Too many ideas thrown into that death scene - make it unrealistically unbelievable now.