Taking a look on Talking Pictures free online catch-up service to see what Ealing titles were currently on the site, I was pleased to spot a movie from the studio which I had not heard of before, leading to me meeting a gentle gunman.

View on the film:

Overlapping dissolves to reveal a hidden bomb, director Basil Dearden & The Third Key (1956-also reviewed) cinematographer Gordon Dines following the divide between the brothers with an excellent, ultra-stylized Film Noir atmosphere, where Dearden cuts through the crisp high contrast lighting, with jagged panning shots over rugged terrain, push-ins on Terry wrestling with his long-held views,and stark close-ups, as Matt becomes increasingly involved with the IRA.

Seeing their family get divided, (with Elizabeth Sellars being wonderful as Fagan) John Mills and Dirk Bogarde give wonderful performances as brothers Terence and Matt, who fight each other over trying to decide if they should stay loyal to family, or the cause. Sadly, the attempt at intense turns by both actors, is undermined by them being forced by the studio to put on Irish accents, which keep gently sliding into iffy.

Continuing with the tight-knitted community (via Matt, Terence and their families) that is a major recurring theme of Ealing Studios productions, Roger MacDougall adapts his own play, and initially appears to take a neutral stance in examining the sides that the brothers take. Disappointingly, as the film attempts to grab a happy ending that comes off as forced, MacDougall drops any attempt at showing the conflict from both sides, in order to take the side of Terence, with little questions allowed to be raised, of the cause which has trigged the conflict with the gentle gunman.

Best bit in this film is "Terence's Soliloquy", where John Mills delivers a speech straight out of Sean O'Casey; basically "people are alike all over, Germans, British, Irish, French, American, they all pay too much in rent and taxes, it's splitting them up into countries that causes all the trouble"; the ending was like something out of Mack Sennett's "Keystone Kops"; Robert Beatty (Shinto)'s IRA cell races off into the distance, the GARDA in hot pursuit, everybody firing guns out of the car windows like stagecoach passengers pursued by Apaches! No wonder Terence sighs and takes Dirk Bogard off for a drink somewhere.