Cloudburst (1951) User Reviews

A "Cloudburst" of revenge

[PudgyPandaMan · 7/10 · 29 October 2008]

It appears not many have seen this film as evidenced by the few reviews. I was surprised that it was as good as it was given it seems few have seen it.

Produced by Hammer Films of England, this is fairly light fare for them as they became primarily producers of horror films. Even still, there are some macabre elements to this film (several characters being run over by cars).

Preston, as John Graham, is quite believable in his portrayal of an ex-commando for the Resistance, who is indebted to his wife, played very genuinely by Elizabeth Sellars, who also worked alongside him in the Resistance. He credits her for saving his life for refusing to divulge secrets under torture. She limps visibly as a result. They are expecting their 1st child. Tragically one evening she is the victim of a hit and run by murder suspects fleeing from capture. Graham recalls his wife saying (upon hearing of a murder) that her anger would hound the murderer like a cloudburst until she could repay what they had done. So he begins a systematic plan to get revenge on the 2 people who killed his wife.

I thought Sellars had quite a beautiful and interesting face - especially her cheekbones. Its a shame she was killed off so early in the film.

I think the writers did a good job of evolving the story. They don't reveal all about the Graham's past together and how she got the limp, saved his life, etc. until later. It keeps you intrigued.

This is a classic revenge tale. But in light of his past as commando in the Resistance it makes sense. I was surprised that you never really see him rage, but it could be his training in special forces to just "get the job done". I question the likelihood that he would be stupid enough to leave his coded note behind at one of the crime scenes, unless that is part of his "I have nothing to live for" mentality and he is hoping to get caught. Certainly his training should have otherwise prevented this so perhaps it was intentional.

All in all, I found this to be very suspenseful, although a little dark in places.

good, but the author's history is more fascinating

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 20 January 2014]

Robert Preston had an interesting career. He started out as a movie actor, a star but not a big one, and drifted into television in its early days. Always a presence on Broadway, he achieved superstardom for his portrayal of Harold Hill in The Music Man, and went on to do the movie as well as other big films and Broadway shows, including originating the role of Henry II in The Lion in Winter.

Here, he stars in a Hammer film from 1952, Cloudburst, based on a play by Leo Marks. Preston plays John Graham, a cryptographer and someone who worked in the Resistance. His wife Carol is played by Elizabeth Sellars. The two are very much in love, and she saved John's life during the war while, under torture, refusing to talk. They are expecting their first child.

As a result of her experience with the Gestapo, Carol has a marked limp, and she falls in the road. A car runs her over and doesn't stop. The driver is a murder suspect trying to get out of town. Graham decides to get revenge and formulates a plan.

There's nothing unusual about the story, except in this case, the story focuses in on the character of Graham, his calmness and determination while facing that he has lost everything and cares about nothing but revenge on the driver and his passenger, a woman who told him to keep driving.

Colin Tapley plays Inspector Davi, and he does an excellent job.

Worth seeing I think for Preston.

The author, Leo Marks, kind of a film Forrest Gump. was a cryptographer during the war and gave the poem The Life that I Have to spy Violette Szabo to use as a code. Her story was made into a film in 1958 called "Carve Her Name is Pride," a beautiful film. After leaving cryptography, Marks began to write movies and plays, most notably the film Peeping Tom. His father owned the bookshop featured in 84 Charing Cross Road, starring Sir Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft.

Really Good

[whitesheik · 8/10 · 24 October 2008]

I read the other two "reviews" here - the first written by someone who seems to have seen a different film than the one actually in front of his eyes, and the other by someone who doesn't really get one of the major plot points. But, this is the IMDb so what else is new.

I'd never seen or heard of Cloudburst prior to the recent showing on TCM. It's quite a good little film - well directed by Searle, whose work I don't know at all, with a top-notch score by Frank Spencer, a composer I also don't know. Preston is very good, as are the rest of the players, especially the actor who plays the Inspector. The storytelling is compelling, and there's a surprising complexity in Preston's character. Leo Marks, from whose play this was taken, was a fascinating writer and person - as one of the others points out, he really did work as a decoder during the war - and this isn't the only film he wrote where the central character is a decoder - he also wrote Sebastian, in which Dirk Bogarde plays a decoder. And, of course, Marks gave us the brilliant script to Michael Powell's Peeping Tom.

Worth catching if you can find it.

Superb crime drama that also adjusts the viewer to a new post-war Britain

[secondtake · 4 August 2011]

Cloudburst (1951)

A great title, and a curious, odd little film that is commanding at times and well filmed throughout. And it has some real surprises, so good drama.

The big surprise is near the beginning and I don't want to give anything away, but there is a deeply romantic core to the entire movie. This is most of all about a man who loves his wife. Both man and wife are involved in the British top secret code breaking operation of WWII, and the movie begins in fact with a tour of the code-breaking room. But then it shifts to our two leads, the man a hale and handsome Robert Preston, the woman a cute and slightly mysterious Elizabeth Sellars. They're going to have a baby, life looks perfect ahead.

But things take a sudden turn, and Preston is off on a solitary manhunt. His lonely quest and his isolation from his friends make this a kind of British film noir, a post-war malaise hanging over the film (it's set in 1946). There is a more than slight improbability to some of the revenge he wreaks (the victims seem a hair willing to just stand there and take it) but if you accept this as just part of the drama, the rest of the film in all its small details is really great, really compelling.

In a way, the movie is a metaphor for the whole war, both on the grand scale (hating the Germans) and on a personal level (hating particular crimes, specific deaths). And if retribution occurs, a higher order of justice is inserted, too. And honor, or a sense of doing the right thing based on conscience. Preston pulls off all sides of this dilemma well. He's warm and he's cold, he's smart and he's flawed. And in the end he's sentimental, too. The final reading of the code, once it's broken, is a touching triumph.

And what about the character Sellars plays? "My hatred would overwhelm me like a cloudburst," she says, explaining not only the title, but the theme of the movie, retribution from the gut. She inhabits the film very much, but from the opposite side of things than Sellars. As you'll see. The film does move slowly at times. The war is over, that kind of high drama is past, but in its smaller goals it never stutters, it never fails to know what it wants and how to get there.

Impressive British noir steeped in post-war angst

[robert-temple-1 · 7/10 · 22 February 2015]

The American actor Robert Preston (who because of his accent was excused in the story as someone who grew up Canada) stars in this British film which has a genuine noir story and atmosphere, similar to the Americans noirs of the time. It was written jointly by ex-spook Leo Marks and the director, Francis Searle. The next year, 1952, Searle is said to have directed a 30-minute film entitled BULLDOG DRUMMOND, starring Robert Beatty as Drummond. IMDb records no further information about it, and there is no record of its having been released or transmitted. This situation is a strange one, because Robert Beatty starred as Bulldog Drummond five years later in a 30-minute film entitled BULLDOG DRUMMOND AND THE LUDLOW AFFAIR (1957, see my review) directed by David MacDonald. (It was the 22nd of the 25 Drummond films, if one disregards the Searle film.) That 1957 film, which I have seen and reviewed, was a poor TV pilot film. Could the two 30 minute films have been confused with one another perhaps? Or could the 1952 attempt by Searle have been recut for the Rheingold Theatre series by the TV series director David MacDonald (who retired in 1963) and Searle's name taken off? This latter suggestion seems the most likely to me. In other words, the original would have failed as a pilot so that no Drummond series was commissioned, but the pilot was disguised as something new and stuck into another series as a one-off. The coincidence of the same duration and the same star and the same decade are too much. But that is enough about Searle. Returning to this film, it is very good and has an air of authenticity about it. Preston's wife is played by the weird Elizabeth Sellars, who speaks in a semi-articulate and languid manner as if she were slurring her speech through a wall of medication. She is bizarre but fascinating to look at, in the way that an animal which was not quite true to type might be, if studied closely in a zoo, while scientists speculated about what had gone wrong with its DNA. However, the weirdness of Sellars works very well with the story, and in any case she is killed off early on, so that she cannot become too irritating. Sellars was not always as weird as this, for she appeared in 62 films and generally managed to do very well and appear quite normal. She was, for instance, excellent in THE CHALK GARDEN (1964, see my review). In this story, Preston is madly in love with her and the film turns into a revenge tale where he determines to avenge her death by a hit-and-run driver. Her death is particularly poignant in that, the horrors of the War being finally behind them (the story is set in 1946), she is looking at a field which Preston wants to buy as part of their happy future. And then she is without warning run over by two criminals escaping a crime scene at speed. So what could be more noirish than that? The despair of the War, having been lifted momentarily, then turns into a lasting doom. This was why noir was noir. And it is rare to find the essence of noir so well expressed in a British film, as the English being far more stoical than the Americans (the makers of most noir), they tended to express their angst with less fervour and gloom, as they were so much more used to everything going wrong anyway, including their nearest and dearest being suddenly killed without warning in the bombing of London. This film is a notable addition to the list of good British films of the early fifties.

A Man with the skill to take vengeance on his own

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 26 October 2014]

In Cloudburst Scotland Yard Inspector Colin Tapley describes the man he is looking for as a man who was trained with the skill to take vengeance on his own. That in fact is Robert Preston who is a Canadian with experience in special Ops during the late war and skill as a cryptologist.

Robert Preston after being cut loose from his Paramount contract and five years away from his career role in The Music Man was getting work where he could find it. Cloudburst is a British film with Preston in the lead to insure box office clout abroad and as usual for Americans, he plays a Canadian.

While in the country looking over some property Preston bought, Sellars is run down in a hit and run. The perpetrators were Harold Lang and Sheila Burrell who just committed a robbery where they also killed a night watchman. Preston gets a good look and even a license number. If he had just gone to the authorities, Scotland Yard would have nailed these two. But Preston has other plans.

Too many flaws in Cloudburst to keep it from becoming a noir classic. Preston leaves a really incriminating clue at Lang's gym (he is a boxer) that sends Tapley in Preston's obvious direction.

Still a good performance by Preston masks a lot of flaws over and makes Cloudburst a good British noir film.

a couple of savage sequences

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 5 September 2021]

In England during the war, John Graham (Robert Preston) works to decode enemy communication. A couple hits and runs on his beloved pregnant wife. They callously run her over to death in order to escape. With the car's license plate, he tracks down the killers without telling the police.

I really wish that she could fall more naturally. Carol's fall is almost comical when the scene calls for something brutal and devastating. Backing up over her is utterly barbaric. It's a sequence that needs to be executed at a high visual level. It's her fall. She can't be doing the silly girlie fall.

After that, the film brings out John's single-minded determination. He's like a British shark locked on his target. The police investigation is a lot less compelling. It's uncovering things that the audience already knows. It is interesting to have the police get ahead of John but the revenge climax is problematic and conveniently staged. The movie is better off staying with John as he burns a path of destruction searching for that woman. That would have been amazingly brutal. It needs to follow the brutal example of running over that boxer guy. It's such a compelling scene. It's savagery at its finest. If only, the movie could maintain that level for the full length.

Interesting Enough

[karbarmusic · 7/10 · 19 March 2013]

Interesting post-war British revenge tragedy which, surprisingly, casts Robert Preston as a Canadian anti-hero. Fine acting throughout with Harold Lang, who was to become a charismatic acting coach at RADA, as the bad guy. The Scottish actress, Elizabeth Sellars, is doe-eyed and lovely as the lead actress and Thomas Heathcote excels in a cameo performance. It's also good to see some post-war British film industry stalwarts such as Noel Howlett and George Woodbidge turning in their usual robust performances. The black and white photography is quite magical although the film score is overly dramatic. It's sad to see that this film is quite forgotten: the performances demand greater consideration. An English film noir.

My hatred would overwhelm me like a cloudburst.

[hitchcockthelegend · 9/10 · 11 October 2013]

Cloudburst is written and directed by Francis Searle and adapted from the novel by Leo Marks. It stars Robert Preston, Elizabeth Sellars, Colin Tapley, Sheila Burrell, Harold Lang, Mary Germaine, George Woodbridge and Edith Sharpe. Music is by Frank Spencer and cinematography by Walter J. Harvey.

Preston plays John Graham, a Canadian World War II veteran working for the British Foreign Office who trawls England looking for the two hit and run killers who callously murdered his pregnant wife.

Violent, grim and utterly wonderful! Cloudburst is the sort of British noir just crying out to be discovered by more classic film fans.

London 1946 is the backdrop, a changing post war landscape, and we are introduced to John and Elizabeth Graham, both war vets, and in Elizabeth's case, a survivor of torture at the hands of the Gestapo. These are two tough characters without doubt, but the love between them positively bristles on the screen, it feels genuine, it is touching and Searle does a great job of building up the bond between the two before tragedy strikes and sends John Graham on a mission from which he doesn't care if he returns.

Everything's dark isn't it?

John is ex-forces trained and a specialist in cryptography (medal winner for bravery), he not only has the skills for tracking people down, he also has friends willing to do anything for him. We are left in no doubt that he is admired by his ex-army buddies, they would run through brick walls for him, while Carol's family adore him and obviously share his grief. The police are led by intrepid Inspector Davis (Tapley), who in a delicious kink in the narrative seeks out the help of John to catch John himself!

You killed the three of us that night...

With Leo Marks being a real servant of WWII as head of the Special Operations Executive, you can easily grasp the narrative sting involving the horrors of war and post war survivors who returned battered and bruised but unbowed. Further thematic thrust comes by way of vengeance and the perfect noir area where moral killings come to the fore. John Graham becomes an obsessed man, a dangerous weapon who will stop at nothing to achieve his aims, his fall back option should the need arise is a cyanide pill pinned under his jacket collar.

When you're being tortured, remember the first lie's the most important. You may never get a chance to tell another.

As Harvey photographs it in moody black and whites, Searle adds a doom laded atmosphere with close ups, where sweat, smoke and pain are thrust to the front of the screen. The fights are well staged, a torture scene excellent because it seeps with menace without having to hit us in the face, and in Lorna Dawson (Burrell) we have one cold bitch who leaves an indelible impression with the minimum amount of screen time. Cast are great, especially Preston, while Spencer's score dovetails smartly with the changing tones of the plot.

Codes, both moral and cryptic, come crashing together in a must see for anyone interested in British film noir. 8.5/10

Greater depth of characterisation than most

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 19 February 2018]

CLOUDBURST is one of the low budget thrillers that Hammer Films made in the 1950s before they became known for their horror efforts. It's also their first film shot at Bray Studios. The film is less focused on plot than most 1950s-era crime films and more interested in characterisation, with a real depth to the protagonists here. The unknown-to-me Robert Preston plays a codebreaker working in the post-war era who is expecting a baby with his wife Elizabeth Sellars (a real stalwart of the genre during this era). When sh'es run down and killed in the road by a murderous couple, he decides to exact his own brand of revenge, one which takes place outside of the law. The film is low budget in scope and feel, and Francis Searle's direction is merely pedestrian, but the script really sparkles and offers intriguing insight into the mindsets of those involved. Preston is excellent and the strong supporting cast includes dependables like Colin Tapley, George Woodbridge, and Noel Howlett.

Not as good as it could be

[charles-p-hall · 4/10 · 18 January 2010]

I found this movie disappointing. With a plot like that, in a British movie of this era, and Robert Preston to boot, I had very high hopes.

The first half is an extremely sappy love story between the two principals, told against grainy dim backgrounds in night scenes. After the accident Preston all too quickly gets his revenge and even more quickly he is picked up in a super efficient police investigation (there is never another suspect, they latch on to him for no reason).

I would have preferred a more abbreviated romance, a longer search for the killers, and at least somewhat realistic detective work.

The other scenes of Preston's work as a cryptographer seem to consist of a room of eight nondescript people mumbling to themselves. Is that really how they broke codes in the 50's?? Definitely not a keeper.

Cloud Atlas.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 10/10 · 27 June 2014]

As I recently watched a very good making of on the DVD for the fun Hammer Horror title The Mummy's Shroud,I was shocked to discover that actress Elizabeth Sellars holds the honour of starring in the last movie that Hammer filmed at Bray studios, (Shroud) and the first film that Hammer shot at the studio,which appeared to be a completely forgotten Film Noir.

Mentioning the movie on IMDb,I was happily caught by surprise,when a very kind IMDb'er gave me the chance to take a look at the title,which led to me looking up at the sky,so that I could at last see the cloud burst.

The plot:

1946-

Haunted by their memories of getting tortured by the Nazis, John and Carol Graham attempt to numb their pain by working as code breakers for the British government,whilst also saving up for a beautiful plot of land,which they can call their own.Attempting to find an enchanting route in their lives,Carol gives John the news that she is pregnant,which leads to John beginning to plan the family life which he has always desired.

Visiting their future plot of land as they start to look forward to becoming a family,a car suddenly speeds past and runs over Carol,Gripping onto the car,John is able to catch a glimpse of the man and woman inside the car,before he is knocked out.

Woken up by a police officer,John discovers that the car has killed Carol and their unborn child.Feeling his entire world breaking apart,John keeps the description of the man and the woman in the car close to his chest,as the officer attempts to interview him.Patiently waiting until the officer has disappeared from view,John begins to make plans on how he can track down Carol's killer's,so that he can show them the life that they have burst.

View on the film:

For the first half of the movie,writers Leo Marks and Francis Searle smartly keep away from jumping 'straight to the action' by instead allowing the relationship between John and Carol to blossom across the screen,with the couple's dream patch of land giving the title a hauntingly melancholy mood.Wrapping the ghosts from the torture delivered by the Nazis with the soul-destroying death of Carol tightly around John,the writer's cast an unflinchingly brutal Film Noir backdrop,with John being unable to escape from his deadly survival instincts of the past,as he begins to step into a decaying gutter,on the search for Carol and their (unborn) child killer's.

Perfectly expressing the melancholy and furious grief contained in the screenplay,director Francis Searle gives Carol and John's romance a sleek Gothic hue,with the low-lit lighting used for the couple taking a peak at their plot of land,showing the dream which they imagine,whilst also subtly hinting at the darkness which lays ahead for them.Sending John out into the Film Noir world,Searle brilliantly uses real cramp houses as locations to show how the pain & fury inside of John is consuming him,with Searle also giving the movie a harsh,gritty appearance,as John casts his first strikes of revenge.

Despite featuring in only half of the movie, Elizabeth Sellars gives a tremendous shadow which cast a long shadow across the entire film,thanks to Sellars giving Carol a real sincerity in her hopes that she and John will be able to leave their Nazi horror behind.Frantically using all of his past skills as he searches for the driver & the passenger of the car, Robert Preston gives an excellent performance as John,with Preston showing John's soft eyes gradually transform into an unforgiving fire,as John sees the silver lining on his cloud burst.

Preston's North End.

[southdavid · 6/10 · 24 May 2022]

The next movie watched for the "House of Hammer" Podcast is "Cloudburst", a 1951 film, notable for being the first one Hammer made at Bray Studios following their acquisition of it.

In post war Briton, John Graham (Robert Preston) and his team continue to undertake cryptography work for both the Police and for British Intelligence. His seemingly settled life is devastated when his wife Carol (Elizabeth Sellars) is killed in a hit and run accident. Broken, and out for revenge, he uses contacts within the Police department to track down his wife's killers. Bringing them to justice though, isn't exactly what he has in mind.

Adapted from a play by Leo Marks, who would later provide a screenplay for Michael Powell's seminal "Peeping Tom" "Cloudburst" marks, to my eyes anyway, a big step up in the quality of filmmaking we've seen from Hammer studios. It maybe was that I was watching a print that had been worked on, that might help explain how good the film stock looked or the step up in sound quality - but that wouldn't explain the sudden move to exterior shots, multiple locations, camera's attached to cars for visual effects.

Nor would it account for bringing over Robert Preston to feature as the films lead. This was before he would gather acclaim in "The Music Man" or his Oscar nomination for "Victor/Victoria". Preston is really good here, a proper presence as the devastated leading man. Whilst I appreciate the noir, and indeed general darkness of the picture as a whole, I do wish that it held together a little better. In retrospect, I wish that Graham's skills had tied more into how he tracked down the pair, or even how he covers up what happens to them.

It's not that I disliked it because of this, it's more that I wished that the plot had matched the characterisation, because there's a real depth of backstory to the leads.

Simplistic eye-for-an-eye tale

[evening1 · 5/10 · 25 September 2021]

This black-and-white is heavy in noir atmospherics but skimpy in believable characters and common sense.

A decade from his star turn in "The Music Man," Robert Preston plays far less charismatic John Graham, a WWII cryptographer eager to buy some property and start a family with his wife, Carol (Elizabeth Sellars).

Things go terribly wrong one night, when Carol gets killed in a hit-and-run witnessed by John. It's the first of three unconvincing vehicular homicides in this film.

Sure, Carol had tripped and fallen in the road, but she clearly saw the approaching headlights. Rather than rolling out of the way, she lies there like a beached whale, and it makes no sense.

The movie's subsequent deaths by car are no more logical. If a vehicle's barreling towards you, get out of the way! I dislike when movies take the audience for a fool, and this is one does, repeatedly.

This film features a dull cryptology subplot that I couldn't follow. Several times, we're dragged to a workroom where coders hunch over their pencils and pads -- for no discernable reason. Making matters worse, this film's title is obscure and melodramatic.

R Preston in British murder case (poss spoiler)

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 24 October 2008]

Poss Spoiler - This post-war-time black & white film from England stars Robert Preston (from films Music Man, Beau Geste) as Robert Graham, a married, WW II veteran. Placed in England in 1946, Cloudburst co-stars Elizabeth Sellars, Colin Tapley, Harold Lang, and Lyn Evans. We are shown right at the beginning that he speaks Japanese, French, Spanish, & Italian, and works in the secret Codes/Decryption office in England. All is well until a couple in a car kills someone close to him during a hit and run, then drives off. Determined to get revenge, he goes in search of them, and the chase is on. There WAS a British film also titled "Cloudburst" from 1922, but IMDb and Wikipedia have almost no information on that one. This 1951 film was from the play by Leo Marks, who really did work in the Coding/Encryption office during WW II. Screenplay and direction by Francis Searle. Interesting dilemma near the end, where two suspects who really ARE guilty of separates crimes deny knowing each other, to avoid prosecution. Will justice be done? The ending can be guessed, if one thinks about it, (but they didn't...) Entertaining story, no giant plot-holes. Also quite good quality sound and lighting, which wasn't always prevalent in British films back then.

A forgotten noir from Britain

[nickenchuggets · 7/10 · 1 November 2021]

Normally, I actively seek out and watch film noir movies whenever they come to my attention because most of them are enjoyable. Some though, such as Cloudburst, are merely ok. It's not as impressive or exciting to watch as something like Cause For Alarm with Loretta Young, but I decided to see it anyway because it is an obscure film made in britain. This is one of those movies that I had to discuss almost immediately after watching it, because there's not a lot of information about it online due to its obscurity. This makes recalling details in the film difficult because the only way to remember everything is to have watched it recently. After experiencing this film, I can conclude that it's not really that great, but it does have a plot point that interests me because it involves world war 2. The story centers around a man named John (Robert Preston), a former codebreaker for the british military during the war. In real life, the nazis were fond of using something called an enigma machine. Basically a kind of typewriter with a set of rotors on top, the machine encrypted every single character with a special symbol, and the encoded messages could only be deciphered by another engima machine with the same rotor settings. This basically meant that with every single key press, a letter can show up as 1 out of over 20 million possible combinations. Due to this, it wasn't surprising that the germans throughout the war were convinced that the enigma machine was undecipherable. This is where our main character comes in. During the war against Hitler, he was involved with trying to crack these german radio messages in order to provide the british (and allied forces overall) with more accurate intelligence. In wartime, information is power, and the more you have of it, the better. After the war, John is out walking with his wife Carol one day when a car comes down the rural, unpaved road they're walking on and hits Carol. John explodes at the driver of the vehicle, insisting he did this on purpose and there is no possible way it was an accident. The man in the car's wife stabs John's hand with scissors and they drive away. Later, John uses his skills as a former intelligence officer to discover the identity of his wife's attacker and tracks him to a secluded area. He tortures the man (who's named Mick) and eventually runs him over in a car on a rural road. John now feels he has had his revenge, but only partially, since the guy's wife is still alive. Unfortunately, his plan backfires because now John is himself a wanted man for killing the driver of that car. Eventually, Scotland Yard gets involved and tries to track down who they think is responsible for killing Mick, although they're not initially aware that John himself did it. Ironically, John lies to the very faces of people he works with about who did the killing, and the men have no idea that the murderer is right in front of them. Scotland Yard is however aware that whoever killed Mick used a secret code word which when deciphered, will reveal the identity of the killer. John later confronts the same woman who stabbed him with the scissors that day when his wife was killed, and runs her over in his car. Having nothing to lose by this point, John goes back to where all the codebreakers are, who have been trying all day to find out the secret word but haven't been able to do so. John decides to turn himself in and reveals that the secret word is Carol, the name of his dead wife. After having a final drink, John is arrested and taken away by the cops. I have to say, even though I didn't think this movie was that incredible, it certainly had one of the most english endings I've ever seen. An american film noir would probably have the "protagonist" go out guns blazing and kill as many cops as possible before going down, but John goes willingly. Robert Preston delivers a good performance in this movie, but my main gripe with the film is how bland the dialogue sequences seem. I don't know what it is, it just seems like if dialogue scenes aren't handled competently, I fidget through them because I get impatient at the lack of new scenery. It seems like each time two people in the film are talking, the camera angle never changes. They just use one camera every single scene, and the viewpoint remains static. Understandably, this can get pretty tiring. Aside from those segments, I thought the rest of the movie was pretty good, especially the parts where John tortures Mick and runs over him and later his wife. Elizabeth Sellars does a good job as well, even if she doesn't appear that much before she's killed. She was involved in world war 2 just like her husband, and was tortured by the Gestapo (nazi secret police), sustaining a permanent leg injury. It's also worth noting that this film was made by Hammer Studios, which is mostly remembered today for their numerous horror movies.

PRESTON IS FINE IN THIS NOIR FROM BLIGHTY...!

[masonfisk · 7/10 · 12 September 2021]

A 1951 British film noir starring Robert Preston. Preston is a Canadian living in Merry ol' England, married w/a young one on the way. He served w/the Brits during the war as a cryptologist (code breaker) & still toils in that craft as a career. Tragedy strikes when one night while out on a walk w/his wife, played by Elizabeth Sellars, near their home a speeding car strikes & kills her but not before in desperation Preston grabs hold of the driver begging him & his companion for help before they flee away. Preston then sets out on a road for revenge by corralling some of his old running mates from the service to provide him w/info & tools to find the errant killers (we learn they were racing from the scene of another murder before hitting Sellars) but after Preston dispatches the driver (he runs him over w/his car) a perverse game is enacted as he leaves a note w/an encrypted code which the investigating officer brings to his office to decode. As the narrative runs down, Preston sets his sights on the driver's companion who has been taken into protective custody w/the detective putting together all the pieces to figure out who the culprit is. Preston is fantastic here as man of action working through his anguish where his goal will not bring him the satisfaction he thinks he'll get.

Puzzle Mystery

[boblipton · 6/10 · 23 October 2008]

This is a tightly-constructed mystery of the pre-Black Mask style, in which the solving of the crime -- here a potential serial killer -- must be tracked down, and the only clear clue is a bit of paper at the scene of the crime with a cypher code.

The movie tries to add psychological drama by turning it from a "Whoodunnit" to a "Howcatchem" a style of mystery familiar to all fans of the old "Columbo" TV movie series, with the added punch that it is told from the viewpoint of the killer -- in this case, Robert Preston, who is an American who is somehow running a code-breaking division for the British government. Motivations are established early, but the whole thing is rendered a bit flat by the lack of details that surround the personnel. The result is a well-told story that is not, alas, particularly gripping.

A war veteran takes full responsibility for his own unacceptable tragedy

[clanciai · 8/10 · 22 March 2017]

A complicated story with many undercurrents to it, that are not plainly visible to the eye - a viewer might get confused by this intrigue, the main character being very difficult to understand. Only if you know something of the second world war and its experiences, the character that Robert Preston impersonates becomes credible.

It's a very different espionage story to the usual ones. Preston is a code breaker expert and has been through quite a lot in the war, and so has his wife - you never get really into her story, but it's clear she has gone through some very difficult ordeals. For that reason, and many others, he loves her more than can be expressed, and the first part of the film with their relationship is beautifully illustrated by excellent music reminiscent of a Rachmaninov symphony. The music by Frank Spencer is outstanding throughout. When the cloudburst occurs the upsetting shock is really unsettling, especially to Robert Preston, and the romantic film turns sinister and the more so for each new turn of events.

The main asset of the film is the very skillful story, which is more than intelligent, and you can't help admiring Robert Preston's character for his astuteness in managing his own intrigue. He surprises you all the time by constantly knowing more than the audience and thus leads the way into his own abyss, which is unavoidable - he admits it himself, and the audience accepts it, that he is already hopelessly a dead man for his atrocious loss.

It's as good a spy story as any of the great ones by Hitchcock and Carol Reed, only this is so much more sinister.

Unusual and worth your time...

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 26 December 2012]

The story in "Cloudburst" is not particularly believable...but that can also be said about MANY movies. However, the film has many unique story elements--and that's something that makes it worth seeing.

This British film stars Robert Preston as a Canadian living in the UK. He and his wife are happily in love and life is looking up for them--until, out of the blue, she is fun over by a couple jerks who couldn't care less! Instead of giving the police a correct identification, the husband is determined to investigate the case on his own...and then kill the killers! What makes it really unusual is the savagery of his attacks. It's rather unflinching and brutal. Overall, the film is an interesting example of British film noir--and Preston was very good in the lead.

Where's Stanley Baker?

[ajplex · 5 September 2021]

The credits list Stanley Baker as the Milkman, but I viewed this film twice and didn't see Mr. Baker. Curious. Anyone have any info on this?

Snoozeburst

[ArtVandelayImporterExporter · 2/10 · 5 September 2021]

This is a 50s radio play shot on the cheap.

One camera per scene, No setup shots. No reaction shots. Just people in dimly lit rooms talking to each other. They move a bit. The single camera moves a bit. If you close your eyes and just listen to the characters speaking, you'll get just as much out of it.

Always nice to see Robert Preston. It's almost unfair how dashing that guy was. I'd watch him shop for groceries, to be honest.

cloudburst

[mossgrymk · 7/10 · 25 September 2021]

To answer previous reviewer mollytinkers question: it's a noir for the first forty minutes or so and a pretty intense one at that. But then the folks at Hammer appear to lose confidence that a properly psycho Robert Preston can carry the picture so they decide to bring in a too laconic police inspector and for the rest of the way we get a rather standard Scotland Yard procedural. Somewhat dismaying, as the Brits might say. Give it a generous B minus for Preston and the well handled scenes of extremely brutal violence.

Odd, quirky, eclectic film

[mollytinkers · 6/10 · 5 September 2021]

My review title is redundant. Except for the post-war coding thing, this is pure fodder. Thanks to this film, however, I've learned that Preston's delivery of lines is the same in every movie he's ever been in, only some deliveries are more animated than others. Another redundancy.

Noir? You decide.

The music score by Frank Spencer is pure romanticism. Mr. Thomas Heathcote sure brought spice as Jackie. Nothing exemplary, but I confess I will probably watch it again.

Slightly outdated but it still works.

[jordondave-28085 · 6/10 · 4 April 2023]

(1951) Cloudburst CRIME DRAMA

Co-written and directed by Francis Searle adapted from the play by Leo Marks that has a Canadian WWII vet as a professional cryptologist, John Graham (Robert Preston) who works for the British seeks out retribution to the couple who purposely ran over killing his wife and his unborn child while walking on a deserted road. He finds out that the person or persons who ran over and killed his wife was really a woman who told her driver to keep on driving who appear to be on the run. An inspector (Colin Tapley) is notified as he is helping the husband into solving the case.