Time Bomb (1953)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Let's be realistic.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

A film that spends more time with the domestic problems of a bomb defuser and his wife than it does with bomb defusing can't be all good. It's not all bad either and makes up for being slim on material by being rather short. There is one excellent shot/sequence panning from the parked train ready to explode to the nearby graveyard and then to a nearby pub full of unsuspecting people singing "Show me the way to go home." It's too bad the movie doesn't have more of this type of thing. The film loses suspense by constantly cutting away from the bomb search to routine domestic scenes of the wife bitching and moaning while trying to catch a train out of town. This whole French wife complaining earns little audience interest or sympathy these days. I guess at the time that whole aspect was for women in the audience where today they tend to make this kind of film for guys and leave the women out of it entirely or have them only as victims. Though in this case that might have been better--it just spends so little time with the whole race against time aspect of the story. The resolution to the wife thing is lame though the resolution to the bomb aspect is satisfying. A director more interested in bombs and the detail of the race against time, and a script with a lot less clichéd domestic melodrama would have helped. All pro level production, photography and acting helps but can't overcome the shortcomings and almost non-characterization of the principal characters. Ford doesn't appear until almost 15 minutes into the film. More music would help as well.

This film is brilliant!!! Our Lass and I have just watched it on Turner Classic Movies, we discovered it by accident and what a film, all I can say is watch it.... Look out for the old boy 'I like trains, can I climb on?' he's the real hero!!! Would like to have seen the rugby tackle, I guess they knocked each other out!!! The locomotive is 48600, a Stanier 2-8-0 of the Midland Region of British Railways, its an ex-LMS locomotive, only three were preserved and this one was not.... although some 150 odd survived to the end of steam on BR in 1968 also look for the beautiful MG sports car, yummy.... To sum up, a fantastic period piece from the early 1950's.

This British film is truly awful, and it's hard to believe that Glenn Ford is in it, although he pretty much sleepwalks through it. The idea of a bomb on a train sounds good...but it turns out this train ends up parked for the majority of the film! No action, no movement, just a static train. The area where the train is parked is evacuated, so it's not like there's any danger to anyone either. In fact, this film could be used in a film class to show how NOT to make a suspense film. True suspense is generated by letting the audience know things that the characters don't, a fact apparently unknown to the director. SPOILER: the train actually has two bombs on it, but we are led to believe there is only one. After the first bomb is defused, it feels as if there is no longer a reason to watch the film any more. But at the last minute, the villain, who has no apparent motivation for his actions, reveals there are two. Nor are we certain WHEN the bombs will go off, so we don't even have a classic "ticking bomb" tension sequence. A good 10 minutes or more are spent watching Glenn Ford's French wife thinking about leaving him, and then wondering where he is . She's such an annoying character that we don't care whether she reconciles with him, so when she does, there's nothing emotional about it. Most of the other characters are fairly devoid of personality, and none have any problems or issues. It's only 72 minutes, but it feels long because it's tedious and dull. Don't waste your time.

An enjoyable British thriller from the 1950s with an excellent supporting cast makes this well worth watching. But was it necessary to get an actor all the way from Hollywood? Glenn Ford always played himself, perhaps there could have been idea to have a more anonymous actor in the lead? The love story between Ford and Anne Vernon is unnecessary and does not add anything to the story.