We earn a commission for products purchased through some links in this article. Model philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not. They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me […] civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten up their rotten little lives.
No one could raise an eyebrow better than Connery — many a lesser actor would need an entire scene to say what he could say in just a twinkle and a pout.
And he does it throughout this impeccable underwater spy thriller about a rogue Soviet submarine captain who defects to the United States. Based on Tom Clancy's bestseller, Baldwin's Jack Ryan, a green CIA analyst, finds himself thrust into a high-stakes game of cat and mouse against Connery's seasoned and enigmatic Soviet captain. It is thrilling and suspenseful and has more tension than a cabin-full of sea captains on a sinking boat.
Released as Blackout in America, this was only the second collab between Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and it's a big leap on from their first feature together, The Spy in Black. A couple of months into the Second World War, things have yet to break out into all-out war across Europe. In the English Channel, a Danish vessel is stopped for inspection. All seems normal until a couple of passengers steal shore passes and bolt for London.
First officer Axel Skold sets off in hot pursuit, and finds that the capital is crawling with spies working to undermine the war effort. It's a lot lighter than it sounds, full of the quirk which makes Powell and Pressburger's classics so deeply British. Marlene Dietrich is at her icy, imperious best as a sex worker who's recruited to work as a spy in the Austrian secret service during the First World War, and having earned redemption in the eyes of polite society decides to burn it all away.
