SEVEN DAYS TO NOON (1950) **1/2 This must have been a very intense movie for the time, but it has passed its "scariest by" date. The powers that be chose to share little information on atomic bombs at the time-which was wise-but what with all the unaccounted for uranium isotopes and materiel floating around these days, we now know-or at least are told-that the trick isn't so much gathering ingredients as putting together a massive delivery system. So the threat depicted in the film would only cover a few square blocks, rather than half of London. Little matter, it's an interesting psychological/morality piece on working in the defense industry. John and Ray Boulting rely on random elements that we've come to associate with Hitchcock, London shot beautifully in all its grimy splendour, and a film noire feel, to piece together a nice work in which precious little ever actually happens, but it always seems that it could. The actors are all very good, but there's no one that you're likely to think about much a few hours later. I guess it must have seemed a good way to have a military movie in the post WWII era, but we've seen 9/11 since then, and perpetual war rarely interrupted in the decades sense, and so the clout of this sort of thing just isn't what it was. It settles in nicely, historically, as a well done little film nearly fit for a relaxing weekend afternoon.
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