High Treason (1951)

Directed by Roy Boluting; produced by Paul Soskin

An explosion on board a ship loading supplies for the Near East is the latest incident in what appears to be a campaign directed against Britain’s military. The case involves Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, headed by Commander Robert Brennan (Liam Redmond), and MI5, represented by Major Elliott (Anthony Bushell), in a race to find the culprits before more crimes are committed. What the authorities don’t know is that the sabotage is building to a climax that could paralyse the country’s defences.

A follow-up – a sequel in a way – to Seven Days to Noon, High Treason is a film from the successful Boulting Brothers team. It casts a number of the same actors as the earlier film (the Boultings used the same players from various of their movies repeatedly), though only André Morell plays the same character; in Seven Days to Noon, his Superintendent Folland leads the investigation; here he is subordinated to a superior.

Like its predecessor, High Treason is a combination of thriller and police procedural. Viewers watch as the authorities piece together clues, follow suspects, question the public. But the audience is also in on the saboteurs’ plans. This leads to some exciting moments as the two sides of the story intersect, sometimes deliberately, sometimes by accident.

The direction is very good, especially at the climax, which features a gun-battle at Battersea Power Station. One knows the writing and the direction are above average when one is certain the villains’ scheme will fail – such is the enormity of their intentions – but the final scenes thrill nonetheless.

The script is intelligent, and keeps away from extremes. There is no genius detective; rather, a number of smart investigators who know their jobs: what questions to ask, how to exert subtle pressure, where to look and when to keep quiet. The screenplay refrains from mentioning the ideology of the villains, though it is clear they are Communists (‘bourgeois’ is an insult, and one character is reading a book entitled Heroes of the Revolution); nor are they treated as fanatics.

Most of the villains believe in their cause; in fact, a major character, a young electronics expert (Kenneth Griffith), remorseful at his involvement in deadly sabotage, describes his initial recruitment to ‘the movement’, impelled by how he had seen his poor mother work herself ragged to support him and his brother. The exceptions to the criminals’ dedication is a crooked politician (Anthony Nicholls), concerned solely with power, and an assassin (John Bailey), whose Russian original name betrays the country behind the plot, without stating it.

The acting, as is usual of British movies of this era, is unspectacular but convincing. Especially good is Redmond, as the typically plodding but sharp cop, and Griffith. But all the players are of uniform quality, many of them remaining in the industry until they became familiar to audiences as much older actors. (Geoffrey Keen (portraying an ill-fated saboteur) ended his cinematic career in a recurring role as ‘the minister’ in James Bond movies, and Joan Hickson (as the mother of Griffith’s character) played tv’s Miss Marple into her late eighties; Roy Boulting’s last directorial work was one of the Miss Marple episodes.)

An involving movie with no gimmicks, High Treason is a straightforward and entertaining crime-thriller.