Alex da Silva Michael Redgrave (Charleston) is a lighthouse keeper on a remote lighthouse on Lake Michigan. He used to be a reporter but no-one listened to his warnings about the evils of the emerging New Order in Germany and Italy. Disillusioned with mankind he chooses to live away from it all. His friend James Mason (Streeter) tells him that he thinks he is a coward and the two fall out, leaving Redgrave alone on the lighthouse island. But is he alone? It's an interesting premise for a film and it scores with me for doing something different. However, it does drag on a little which is a shame. I wanted this film to be an eye-opening ghost chiller with a message but it only drives home a rather obvious point and isn't scary as such. It is other-worldly which is good. And there is a climax scene where the ghostly images are presented with the truth about their lives. Are they real ghosts or images conjured up in Redgrave's head? The film favours the latter for a means of wartime propaganda but the film would have been better if the former was what is actually happening. It is, of course, actually happening for Redgrave so we go along with him. But, if it was actually happening…….spooky…… As an aside, I always thought it would be a weird experience to live on a lighthouse. Turns out my wife has a lighthouse connection as one of her great ancestors was a Lighthouse Keeper at Dover. Whilst the custodian, English scientist Michael Faraday helped install the light there and Italian engineer Marconi transmitted the first radio signal abroad from it. He sent a signal over to France……..and we now have the Eurovision Song Contest…..so it was totally worthwhile.

Signet The sheer tedium of the pacing was enough to make me want to turn this WW II propaganda film off, but I was determined to see it through. The message, however, came stomping over my hopes for some redemption from a very solid cast with unquestioned talents. Sadly, they didn't stand a chance with this gray, grim material that was meant to convey a very plain and unadorned message: Oppression is bad, liberty is good. It is impossible to disagree, but this movie was so drawn out, so yawn-worthy, that it almost undercut the sentiment. Not one of the better products of the difficult war years from Britain's film industry. And, alas, Michael Wilding's central performance was such a sorry one-note of morose self-pity that it was extremely difficult even to want to empathize with him. Times were tough for the British during the Forties but at least they couldn't have been this boring.

eye3 Michael Redgrave couldn't have given a bad performance if he wanted to. And seeing James Mason so early in his career was also a treat.No, it was the premise of the story which disappointed me. Sold as a ghost story, this was really forerunner of the two-act psychodramas which permeated Anglo-American theater for the fifty years after WW2.After establishing the setting of the loner in the light-house, we find that British leftist writer David Charleston took the lighthouse job on Lake Michigan only to get away from a world headed for war and which, co-incidentally, had little use for his earnest genius (the poor fellow!) For companionship he imagines six people from a log of passengers lost in a wreck from 1849. He's told only the captain that they're dead. Charleston imagines them as silly, shallow people with non-real-world consequences but the Captain persuades him to imagine them as real human beings with real lives and real struggles. I won't go into further details, only to say that Charleston's ultimate lesson is to learn to go back to his own world and live in it, to carry on the good fight, yadda, yadda, &c.This was leftist interventionist propaganda of the sort seldom seen since it was made. It was done much better in "A Matter of Life and Death" (1946). It's well-acted, directed and photographed -- it could be worth a remake -- but I was insulted, not persuaded, by its heavily hammered point that moving to America was merely running away from life's problems -- a point which did little to endear the movie to American audiences then or since. Indeed, the worst isolationism here was not America's geography but David Charleston's egotism. That human failing can be found anywhere.

bob the moo When the authorities discover a lighthouse keeper is not cashing his paychecks, they go to visit him to make sure he is OK. One of the visitors gets into a chat with the lighthouse keeper, David Charleston and discovers that his desire to stay in the lighthouse is based on the fact that he is in contact with the ghosts from a ship that sunk many years ago; although the ghosts do not know they are dead. Charleston hides away - having been frustrated by those in power ignoring his warnings about fascism. However he finds that each passenger has had similar experiences that he, with the benefit of future knowledge, can learn from.The point of this film is both obvious but also too obscure. The message of not giving up is laboured at the end, but for the majority of the film, it is hidden and damages the early meaning of the film. The pre-war setting is a morale boosting tale of sticking at it - for we never know what tomorrow will bring; it delivers a reasonable tale but I found it hard to get into the stories of the various passengers as they were not characters I was given a lot of time to get into and care about. The stuff with Charleston himself works better as I cared about him due to the time spent with him.The film is very stagy however, it doesn't really flow very well at times and the best scenes are played out as if in a theatre. It is rather heavy at times but it still works if you know what to expect. The cast is OK but really it is all Redgrave's film. He exaggerates his performance as if he is on a stage and needing to project to the back row, but he is still very good. Mason has a minor role but always has such a good presence that it is hard to fault him. The support cast of passengers is less assured and really never get close to being real people - instead their dialogue and stories are too heavily laden with meaning.Overall this is a reasonably good propaganda. It has more meaning and human pathos than most WWII propaganda films as it is not anti-enemy but pro-spirit and persistence. It may all be a little heavy and too stagy but it is enjoyable if you can do enough to get past the heavy message and some overly worthy acting.