Thunder Rock (film)
| Thunder Rock | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Directed by | Roy Boulting |
| Produced by | John Boulting |
| Written by |
Bernard Miles Jeffrey Dell |
| Based on |
Thunder Rock by Robert Ardrey |
| Starring |
Michael Redgrave Barbara Mullen James Mason Lilli Palmer |
| Music by | Hans May |
| Cinematography | Mutz Greenbaum |
| Edited by | Roy Boulting |
|
Production
company |
Charter Film Productions
|
| Distributed by |
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (UK) English Films (US) |
|
Release date
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Running time
|
112 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Thunder Rock is a 1942 British drama film based on Robert Ardrey's 1939 play Thunder Rock. It was directed by Roy Boulting, and starred Michael Redgrave and Barbara Mullen, with James Mason and Lilli Palmer in supporting roles.
The film is based on the 1939 play Thunder Rock by Robert Ardrey, which had originally been a notable stage flop in New York, but proved to be considerably more successful in London where it ran for months in the West End. The film version was opened out considerably from its source by the addition of a montage sequence to illustrate the protagonist Charleston's back-story, and flashback sequences detailing the histories of the various characters in Charleston's imagination, in the process serving to give a heightened propagandist tone to the material.
Critical opinion of the time in Britain was divided as to whether the additional material brought new depths to the story, or made too explicit things which Ardrey had preferred to leave to the audience's imagination and intelligence. The film was however almost universally admired by North American critics and became a huge popular success. Ironically, it ran to packed houses in New York for over three months, where the play had folded in less than three weeks.
During the late 1930s, David Charleston (Redgrave) is an ambitious campaigning newspaper journalist, a fierce opponent of fascism and the British policy of appeasement. He wishes to alert his readers to the dangers of German rearmament and the folly of ignoring what is going on in Europe, but the reports he submits are censored by the editor of his newspaper. He subsequently quits his job and sets off on a speaking tour around the country under the slogan "Britain, Awake!" The lack of interest and response indicates that Britain is happy to keep slumbering. The final straw comes when Charleston is at the cinema, and the newsreel feature comes on the screen detailing the German occupation of the Sudetenland. The audience show themselves completely uninterested in the newsreel, taking the opportunity to chat among themselves or go in search of refreshments. In despair at the way his countrymen seem totally oblivious to the ever-more impending doom which is about to engulf them, and appear to be content to go about their daily business as normal while all the time sleepwalking towards disaster, he decides to turn his back on Britain and find a far-flung location where he can withdraw from the world and all its contemporary woes.
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