Seven Days to Noon

The weakness, and at the same time the strength, of Seven Days to Noon is that it is not a thrilling thriller. It concerns a conscience-stricken atomic scientist who threatens to blow up London if the British government does not give up producing bombs (he gives a seven-day ultimatum which is to expire at noon--hence the title). The issue at hand, therefore, is: will he be found and stopped before he explodes his bomb? The answer is too obvious. No one can fool himself into accepting the likelihood of something so well-established as London being blotted out, and besides, everyone who sees the movie knows that London was still standing when he went into the theatre. In the average thriller, or even in the foregone-conclusion romance, the audience can always believe, or suspend its disbelief, that the feared result will come to pass; there is nothing inherently improbable in the wrong man marrying the girl. But even the most empathetic audience cannot feel that the scientist may destroy London.

So this is the weakness of Seven Days to Noon. But the coin has its reverse side. Perhaps because the story lacked the tension one would normally expect of a story about an atom bomb, the good brothers Boulting were obliged to introduce a whole new element into their thriller. The scientist is not chased through sewers by the cops, there are no wild car chases; instead the camera follows him as he wanders mousily around the city trying to evade the police and pass the time safely until he is due to carry out his threat.

So we see him taking a room in a dingy bed-and-breakfast place with a eat-loving woman, and later settling down with an amiable middle-aged prostitute and her dog Trixie. All this local colour and his own quiet virtue and the origin of his criminal status in humanitarian hatred of war rather than the more normal roots of crime, make a refreshingly original atmosphere for a thriller.

But it is in the conclusion that Seven Days to Noon really breaks from the ranks of the ordinary. The government decides to evacuate the city, under the threat of the explosion. Human interest is laid on thick: we see the variegated population of London piling into busses, trains, and other means of escape; we see a little boy who has forgotten to "go" before leaving the house; we see a kindly bus driver following regulations sternly and refusing to allow another little boy to take his pet chicken along with him; we see distraught mothers and aged grandmothers . . .

Then, of course, we see the interesting spectacle of a deserted London occupied only by abandoned pets, the hunted scientist and several divisions of troops searching house to house for him. Even the success of this grand finale lies in the incidental glimpses of minor characters, searching soldiers mainly, not in the slowly mounting "tension," which consists mainly of sweat on the faces of the main characters.

Seven Days to Noon is an interesting picture. The Boulting brothers, Roy and John, who produced, edited, and directed the film (Roy was also co-author of the script) must be given the credit for this. The acting is uniformly good and the character-sketching is delicate.

Although we are not treated to a thriller (as the advertisement would have us believe) and although the central issue of a scientist's possible guilt and responsibility for the weapons he creates is no more than suggested, nonetheless what we do get is an absorbing and entirely original work. In these days of mass entertainment, mass produced, that is high praise.