Night Boat to Dublin

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Night Boat to Dublin
Directed byLawrence Huntington
Written byLawrence Huntington
Robert Hall
Produced byHamilton G. Inglis
StarringRobert Newton
Raymond Lovell
Muriel Pavlow
CinematographyOtto Heller
Edited byFlora Newton
Music byCharles Williams
Production
company
Distributed byPathé Pictures
Release date
8 January 1946
Running time
100 mins
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Box office£151,928 (UK)[1]

Night Boat to Dublin is a 1946 British thriller film directed and co-written by Lawrence Huntington. It stars Robert Newton, Raymond Lovell, Guy Middleton, Muriel Pavlow and Herbert Lom.[2][3]

Plot[edit]

During the Second World War, a captured German spy (Marius Goring) is executed at the Tower of London, without revealing the whereabouts of Professor Hansen, a refugee Swedish scientist in Britain. He is believed to be unwittingly passing information on the atomic bomb to Germany through the neutral Irish Free State. British intelligence attempts to locate him and break this link.[4]

Two intelligence officers, Captain Grant and Captain Wilson, travel incognito on the overnight ferry to Dublin. They observe the German contact, Keitel, and their suspicion falls on lawyer Paul Faber. Grant manages to get a clerical job in Faber's London office, using a false identity. He allows himself to be exposed as an ex-army officer who's gone AWOL, and allows himself to be blackmailed by Faber into doing a number of illegal jobs. These include a marriage of convenience to Marion, a young Austrian girl who is desperate to acquire British nationality; also the theft of some radioactive items from a docks warehouse.

Eventually, the trail leads Grant, Hunter and the police to the fictional village of Hunstable in Devon, and from there to a cliff-edge mansion where Hansen is being hidden. A showdown in a sea cave under the mansion leaves the police triumphant.

Grant is directed to a room where his wife, Marion, is held. She expects a spy is entering and breaks a vase on his head. The film end with her kneeling next to him saying "Oh David".

Cast[edit]

Muriel Pavlow on the set of the film

Production[edit]

Filming took place in July 1945.[5] It was shot at the Welwyn Studios in Hertfordshire with sets designed by the art director Charles Gilbert.

Reception[edit]

  • C.A. Lejeune in The Observer said the film was "effectively done in a small way and has the frankly preposterous zest of a boys' adventure story."[6]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Vincent Porter, 'The Robert Clark Account', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol 20 No 4, 2000 p483
  2. ^ "Night Boat to Dublin". Monthly Film Bulletin. Vol. 13, no. 145. London. 1 January 1946. p. 2.
  3. ^ "NIGHT BOAT TO DUBLIN. (Directed by Lawrence Huntington.) Pathé. Associated British Hughes, Maud". Picture Show. Vol. 50, no. 1232. London. 9 February 1946. p. 2.
  4. ^ Film synopsis
  5. ^ "Future of soldier actors". The Daily Telegraph. Vol. VI, no. 35. Sydney. 15 July 1945. p. 34. Retrieved 7 May 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. ^ Lejeune, C A. (24 February 1946). "THE FILMS". The Observer. p. 2.

External links[edit]

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