Never underestimate the power of hype and the willingness of impressionable snobs to praise the mediocre. If people were easily pleased in 1940 it seems little has changed in almost 60 years. I accept that Powell and Pressburger completists will want to see and/or own this film but just because the team turned out a couple of half decent movies doesn't mean that every early effort was gold dust. The year before the same team had enjoyed a minor success - not, surely, that hard in wartime - with the Spy In Black and figured why not team Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson again and this time, improbable and unrealistic as it is, have them fall in love in between escaping from a spy ring. All sorts of people pop up here and it's amazing that the likes of Peter Bull, Leon Genn and Bernard Miles went on to appear in anything else let alone enjoy reasonable careers. For completists only.
Review of Blackout
