Shot in the chiaroscuro black-and-whites of film noir and restricted, until its climax, to a series of small, relatively claustrophobic rooms in wartime London, this is the visual and thematic antithesis of the Archers’ most beloved films from the 1940s. With its focus on psychological distress, physical ailment, and desperate relationships, we can see the film as the gateway to the path that would lead Powell into directing Peeping Tom, his now celebrated but then reviled portrait of a murderous psychopath. (DVD)