Wordiezett So much average

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

clanciai Charming idylls at the heart of legendary romantic Scotland gradually evolves into a stage of complicated and advanced espionage business. Leslie Banks is a nutty professor, very distracted, who gradually emerges as a leading inventor of the nation, whom everyone is nosily interested in, especially Alastair Sim in one of his early roles, who even here already proves himself amazingly superior as an actor and threatens to dominate the film. However, there is enough competition to put even him at bay when the moment comes. Most brilliant of all is perhaps George Cole as a the boy sent away from bombed London and housed with this lot of eccentrics. He is a Sherlock Holmes expert and gradually gets very busy, helping the inventor with his hobby planes, to begin with. John Mills is fished out of the water as an RAF man, but there is something fishy about him as well. This steadily more complex duck soup of intrigues that you can only guess at culminates in the great bazaar of festivities with fish ponds and other local glories, where the action suddenly gets frenzied with fisticuffs and gunshots, manhunts and all you need to have a nice local rustic espionage thriller for a real titbit of a film.

JohnHowardReid Leslie Banks (John Barrington), Alastair Sim (Charles Dimble), John Mills (Lieutenant George Perry), Jeanne de Casalis (Mrs Barrington), Carla Lehmann (Helen Barrington), George Cole (Ronald Mittsby), Michael Wilding (Alan Trentley), Frank Cellier (John Forest), Muriel Aked (Miss Fernery), Catherine Lacey (Mrs Stokes), Wally Patch (Evans), Muriel George (Mrs Trim), Hay Petrie (Dr Truscott), Sydney Tafler (RAF man), Peter Gawthorne (senior RAF officer), Arthur Hambling (Scotland Yard man), Roddy Hughes (new German agent at agency), Charles Rolfe (piano tuner), (Ben Williams (fisherman rescuer), Brefni O'Rorke (police inspector), Annie Esmond (bazaar parcel lady).Director: ANTHONY ASQUITH. Screenplay: Anatole de Grunwald, J. O. C. Orton. Based on the stage play by Geoffrey Kerr. Photography: Jack Cox. Film editor: R. E. Dearing. Film cutting: Charles Saunders. Art director: Alex Vetchinsky. Music composed by Charles Williams. Music director: Louis Levy. Assistant director: Michael Anderson. Sound supervisor: B. C. Sewell. Sound recording: Sid Wiles and M. Hobbs. British Acoustic Sound System. Mr Asquith's services were obtained by arrangement with Paramount British. Producer: Edward Black. Executive producer: Maurice Ostrer.A Gainsborough Picture, released in the U.K. by General Film Distributors, 6 September 1941; in Australia by G-B-D, 29 October 1942; in the U.S.A. by J. Arthur Rank. Made at Lime Grove Studios. Registered: August 1941. "A" certificate. 90 minutes. No New York opening. U.S. release title: Bombsight Stolen.SYNOPSIS: Spies plan to kidnap the inventor of a bomb-sight.NOTES: Film debut of George Cole.COMMENT: Well above average spy melodrama with a really stunning climax. Very slow to get moving but the plot, once it starts, really engages the attention. Asquith's direction is never less than highly competent, and he has drawn some splendid performances from a remarkably skillful group of actors who keep us guessing right up to the climax as to the actual identity of the spy. And even when the player concerned finally shows his colors, we still expect to find that he is actually a counterspy. Yes, the final action sequences are well worth waiting for. They're staged with an absolutely brilliant finesse that was so much admired by Orson Welles that he copied the idea in "The Lady from Shanghai" (1948).Did Orson's super-charged version do it better? I don't think so. And in the Welles film, it's one of the support players (Glenn Anders) who walks away with the acting honors. In this film, it's hard to choose between John Mills, Alastair Sim, George Cole and Michael Wilding. All of them show sufficient quirks to qualify.Appealing support is provided by Jeanne de Casalis as a typical aristocratic eccentric, the lovely Carla Lehmann as the love interest, Frank Cellier as the cabinet minister, and Wally Patch as the obliging Evans.

SimonJack Others have discussed the plot and acting in "Cottage to Let" (aka, "Bombsight Stolen"). To tell too much would take away from the enjoyment of this film. Some have said it has a slow start. But without such a background and build-up for so many characters, I think we'd be lost. At least one reviewer doubted the probability of such a scenario. I agree with the majority that this is an excellent war mystery and spy thriller. The cast is superb, with some big names of English theater and filmdom – John Mills, Alastair Sim, Michael Wilding, Leslie Banks, and others. And, it has an excellent supporting cast. Of course, this is a fiction story, as are so many of war-time. But as to the likelihood of something like it happening or not, one should consider some other factors. This movie was released in England on Sept. 6, 1941. The U.S. was not as yet in the war, even though most of Europe by then had been overrun by Nazi Germany. The official start of World War II was two years earlier. On Sept. 3, 1939, Britain and France had declared war on Germany after it invaded Poland. The Battle of Britain was waged from July 10 to Oct. 31, 1940, with Germany bombing London, major ports, and other large cities. Even after Britain won this battle for air superiority, Germany continued to bomb London and other cities. As this film noted, Londoners sent their children to country locations to keep them safe from the bombing raids. And, in fact, many British secret operations, including research and war design work were in locales across the country – away from the population and large military bases. Even after the U.S. entered the war and began sending troops to England in 1942, the Allies continued to disperse many of their war-time operations across the countryside. Many special projects were going on, none of which would be common knowledge to the public or reported in the press at the time. Only after the war did we learn about them. Movies have been made about some even decades later. All are interesting tales. Among the ones I've seen and enjoyed are: "Secret Flight" (aka, "School for Secrets") in 1946; "The Small Back Room" (aka, "Hour of Glory") in 1949; "The Dam Busters" in 1955; and "Enigma" in 2001.England had its share of German spies. British intelligence agencies broke up some German espionage rings working for the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service. And, Germany had tried to land agents by submarine in Scotland. No one knew or could imagine to what extent German agents or spies may be operating in England. So, this film was timely as well. I am curious though, about the late date of release of the film in the U.S. – May of 1943, Most of the British-made films during the war were released a year or more later in the U.S. One reviewer said that the Brits preferred American war films to those of the British film studios. I doubt there is any movie attendance or other data that would lend credence to such a statement. I'm sure the British public was drawn to all the war films that were being made at the time, regardless of the country source. No doubt, Englanders wanted to see some of the American movie stars they had come to know. At the same time, British studios were putting out some excellent films. Among them were "One of Our Aircraft is Missing," "Went the Day Well?," "In Which We Serve," "The Way Ahead," "49th Parallel," "Fires Were Started," "Convoy," "Freedom Radio," "The Day Will Dawn," "The Next of Kin," "The Foreman Went to France," "The Bells Go Down," "The Silver Fleet," and "Undercover." Many of the British post-war films also were excellent. I enjoy these films immensely, because they give us a look at the war from the eyes of British servicemen and public. Just as American films give others a view through Americans' eyes. The quality of the DVD I have with this film is rather poor. I hope a digitally mastered DVD will be produced one day soon.

MartinHafer During WWII, there were tons of propaganda films made in the US and Britain to bolster the war effort. Most of them were pretty good and did a good job of mustering support for the war, though quite a few of them (like this film) seem awfully far-fetched when seen today. Now this ISN'T to say that they are bad films or that they are so difficult to believe that it ruins them--it surely doesn't. You just need to suspend disbelief and sit back and enjoy them for what they were intended.COTTAGE TO LET is a dandy little film that packs some excellent stars and performances into it. It's very heavy with stars, having Leslie Banks, Alistair Sim and John Mills. However, while certainly not a star at the time or even one for many years to come, I really enjoyed young George Cole's performance as the precocious teen, Ronald. Despite all these stars, he managed to more than hold his own as a character who was almost like Sherlock Holmes and Dennis the Menace rolled into one! The story, as I said, is tough to believe. Having one or two Nazi spies in Britain during the war was indeed believable, but having so many more and such a complicated plot wasn't. Plus, while you could believe them perhaps stealing some plans or killing a scientist, having an elaborate plot where they kidnap the scientist and take him all the way back to Berlin UNDETECTED is far-fetched. However, in addition to the good acting, the plot was entertaining--so much so that you could ignore all the impossibilities and improbabilities.Overall, while not a great film, it is a fine example of wartime British cinema and is entertaining and fun.