The Small Back Room

The Small Back Room 1949 is a film by the British producerwriterdirector team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger starring David Farrar and Kathleen Byron and featuring Jack Hawkins and Cyril Cusack. It was based on the novel of the same name by Nigel Balchin. In the United States, the film was released as Hour of Glory.

Rice is brought in by Captain Stuart Michael Gough to help solve the problem of small boobytrapped explosive devices mines being dropped by Nazi bombers, which have killed four people, including three children. They receive some useful information from a critically wounded young soldier Bryan Forbes in his debut. Two further mines are found at Chesil Beach they look like common thermos flasks. Stuart is first on the scene but has difficulty getting Rice on the telephone in his flat because Rice is alone following his breakup, angry, drunk and destructive. Rice quickly sobers up, and travels to Chesil Beach only to find that Stuart has tried to defuse one of the mines and has been blown up. Rice sets to work on the second mine after listening to the notes Stuart dictated to an ATS corporal Rene Asherson during his effort earlier in the day. He discovers that the mine has two booby traps, not one, and manages to defuse them both, after which the engineers steamout the explosive charge, thereby rendering the mine intact and safe, and suitable for scientific examination, and development of countermeasures Rendering Mines Safe, actually a Royal Navy function at that time.When Rice returns to London, his selfesteem somewhat restored by his success, he is offered the position of head of the Armys new research unit. He accepts. Susan returns to him and they return to his flat to find Susan has repaired everything Rice had damaged when drunk. ........

Source: Wikipedia