Night Boat to Dublin

Spy melodrama following the heroic adventures of a British secret agent attempting to thwart Nazi atomic plans. The film’s tense action is crisply-photographed by Czech cinematographer Otto Heller but Lawrence Huntington’s off-paced direction fails to capture the espionage excitement. Several performers seized chances to establish themselves as stars of the post-war British cinema, among them sturdy central character Robert Newton, then on the edge of stardom, and Herbert Lom makes a brief but memorable appearance in the early scenes.

In an effort to recover the Swedish scientist Dr. Hansen, who has been missing for six months and is unwittingly giving his work to the Germans, British agent David Grant (Robert Newton) catches the night boat to Dublin. All of Hansen’s recent atomic research work is being sent to a German agent, Keitel (Herbert Lom), in neutral Ireland. Robert Wilson (Lawrence O’Madden), a British secret service agent, also travels to Dublin and retrieves the secret papers from Keitel, but on the return journey he is murdered by a Nazi agent.

Grant becomes suspicious of a man who used a phoney name in a Dublin hotel, Paul Faber (Raymond Lovell), and along with fellow agent Tony Hunter (Guy Middleton), head to London to investigate. Grant takes a job with Faber’s consultancy firm, and ingratiates himself to the Nazi spy by pretending to be a shady character and deserter from the armed forces. In return for his silence, Faber demands Grant agrees to a marriage of convenience to Marion Decker (Muriel Pavlow), an Austrian immigrant. —Britmovie.co.uk