The centre of the film is a shabby little electrical components and radio shop, owned by Joan Hickson, and staffed by her two sons. From their shabby kitchen, with its Edwardian bamboo whatnots and family photos, son Kenneth Griffith gets involved with a gang of high-minded communists who use an avant-garde music society as a front. (Who wrote the musical samples?)
The war is over, and there are new enemies - never named. And new allies, in the person of Commander Brennan, a very obvious Irishman from south of the border. Griffith becomes increasingly nervous as the "music-lovers" harrass him, a former contact is stabbed, and he realises he's had a part in an attack on the docks in which several men died, including a friend.
Yes, it's Hitchcockian, with the gleaming halls of the House of Commons featuring instead of Westminster Cathedral, as poor Griffith confesses all to quite the wrong man. He ends up imprisoned at the top of a tutorial college - another front organisation, guarded by a lackadaisical intellectual who's manning the hidden radio. In another scene this bespectacled swot insists on calling enemies of the movement "bourgeois deviationists".
It is truly suspenseful, and Joan Hickson gives an affecting performanc in a far larger role than her usual cameo. Dora Bryan pops in wearing outrageous hats and providing comic relief.
Also affording a few laughs are the "telephone repair men" sent by the security services to check out the college. "Can you hear me, mother?" was a catchphrase of the day.
The war is over, and there are new enemies - never named. And new allies, in the person of Commander Brennan, a very obvious Irishman from south of the border. Griffith becomes increasingly nervous as the "music-lovers" harrass him, a former contact is stabbed, and he realises he's had a part in an attack on the docks in which several men died, including a friend.
Yes, it's Hitchcockian, with the gleaming halls of the House of Commons featuring instead of Westminster Cathedral, as poor Griffith confesses all to quite the wrong man. He ends up imprisoned at the top of a tutorial college - another front organisation, guarded by a lackadaisical intellectual who's manning the hidden radio. In another scene this bespectacled swot insists on calling enemies of the movement "bourgeois deviationists".
It is truly suspenseful, and Joan Hickson gives an affecting performanc in a far larger role than her usual cameo. Dora Bryan pops in wearing outrageous hats and providing comic relief.
Also affording a few laughs are the "telephone repair men" sent by the security services to check out the college. "Can you hear me, mother?" was a catchphrase of the day.