Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Cissy Évelyne It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Brooklynn There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Robert J. Maxwell Better than you might expect from the British film industry at the height of the country's distress in 1941.It's a diverting and mostly comic mystery with a clotted plot. A cottage in rural Scotland is owned by the local aristocrat, Mrs. Barrington. She's a youngish woman with good intentions but with the insight of one of those vines whose leaves curl when you touch them."Pay no attention to the fact that you're such a nuisance," she tells one resident of the cottage. And, "I want you to do anything here you like except don't touch anything." And when Sims introduces himself, saying, "I'm Dimble," she puts a hand on his arm and replies, "Oh, I'm so sorry." This "cottage", by the way, is what most of us would call "a pretty big house." That's how it can be converted into a war time facility -- a hostel for young evacuees from London, a local hospital, a site for fund-raising bazaar, the laboratory of a bomb sight inventor.It appears that the inventor's secrets are somehow being conveyed to the Nazis. There are twists and turns in the plot, which I won't describe, except to say that there is one German agent and one double agent -- I think that's the term -- among the inhabitants.The film gets kinetic towards the end, with fist fights and shootings. It sheds its comic tone and turns into a thriller. That doesn't prevent one character from rolling a giant millstone over two armed enemies and commenting, "Two birds with one stone." Not to be taken seriously, and sometimes positively amusing.

bkoganbing Watching Cottage To Let one can hope that Leslie Banks learns a valuable lesson. That no matter how much privacy he craves in his work during war time other considerations like security prevail. Of course being kidnapped by the Nazis might be a learning experience.That's what happens here in Cottage To Let, a wartime British film taken from a stage play by actor/writer Frederick Kerr. Banks lives with wife and daughter at a Scottish estate with the usual gang of servants, a young evacuee from the London blitz George Coe and he has his one assistant Michael Wilding for his scientific research which is now directed toward inventing a new 100% accurate bomb sight for the RAF. And from the RAF he has a downed flier from the Battle Of Britain, Flight Lieutenant John Mills.Other than Banks and Coe, absolutely no one is who they seem to be. Some are spies, some are security, the trick is to figure out which is which and I guarantee you won't be 100% right. Even Coe who says that his hero is Sherlock Holmes "the smartest man whoever lived" doesn't get it right though his suspicions do lead to the unmasking of who is who.Even though Cottage To Let is dated and fixed in the time of wartime UK it still is quite enjoyable with some really good performances.

Marlburian "Cottage to Let" is a long way from being one of the better films about the Second World War made during it, but it does have a curiosity value.It shows its origins as a stage-play, with the action concentrated on a house that curiously combines the roles of a private home, military hospital (staffed by its owner and daughter but apparently lacking trained nurses) and secret laboratory, and which also takes in an evacuee in the shape of George Cole. He does very well in his first film, but at 16 looks a bit too old and big (almost as tall as some of the adult men) in the part of someone I imagine was meant to be a bit younger.Interestingly, one actor appears to play a character that contrasts with his usual roles, and another does.The plot has several holes in it, of the type "how did so-and-so know that", and if I was that bothered or was bored I might run the recording through again to see it it makes a bit more sense. One puzzling scene early on involving a phone call does fall into place much later in the film.

richard-meredith27 From the jaunty opening scenes to the thrilling ending, you could be forgiven for thinking 'Cottage To Let' was made during the post war period. But this film was released in 1941, when the outcome of the war was still in the balance.The cast reflects the wealth of talent available in the British Film Industry at this time and for two decades onwards. Not a false note is struck: Jeannie De Casalis makes me laugh out loud playing the dotty wife (check out her introduction speech for John Mills at the fête). Leslie Banks turns in a precise low key performance. He is an antidote to all the eccentric and unbalanced scientists that were/are the staple of cinema-land. Michael Wilding is urbane and, in his scenes, a good foil for a crumpled Alistair Sim, or the intense and faintly menacing John Mills.Sim, of course, had managed to get his protégé George Cole the part of Ronald. Cole had (I think) already played this role on the stage, but took to the sound stage like a fish to water. He moved and acted as if born to boom and camera. In an idle moment compare young George as Ronald with middle-aged George as Arthur Daley in TV's Minder. It's all there: the sideway looks, aggrieved voice, controlled energy, sheer believable and likable personality.The film scores on all points for me. The script is realistic and economical, the supporting cast firmly wedded into the few sub-plots. Even the sets, one or two seem to have migrated from other films, are splendid and evocative. And the final denouement is probably one of the most menacing in wartime film, if not the wettest.