Product Description

Rarely seen British thriller set in Scotland during World War II. A man excavating a bombsight discovers a spy, and sets out to stop his diabolical efforts. Leslie Banks, Alastair Sim and John Mills star. Directed by Anthony Asquith ("The Winslow Boy"). AKA: "Bombsight Stolen." 86 min. Standard; Soundtrack: English.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #155835 in DVD
• Brand: Nostalgia Home Video
• Formats: Black & White, NTSC, Full Screen
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 86 minutes

Customer Reviews

As good as Hitchcock
COTTAGE TO LET takes place in Britain during the early days of WWII, when rationing was a problem people grumbled at, when Cockney twerps were bused out to the country and put up wherever there was an extra bed. George Cole, who has one of those faces only a mother could love, is the leading character here, evacuated from his home and his "mum" and brought to live in an incredibly eccentric family estate in Scotland populated by servants and "quality." Cole's cynical attitude melts when he comes across another temporary guest, a Spitfire pilot (John Mills) who has turned up in a nearby loch apparently shot down and his arm broken. Lucky to be alive, Mills is given some plushy quarters at Barrington Manor, and a doctor and a nurse brought in to see to his healing. In addition, the lovely young ingenue takes an interest in his case and the two of them quickly strike up a close friendship based on similar senses of humor and a thoroughly modern sense of fun.

However nothing is what it appears to be! This movie will forcibly remind you of some of Hitchcock's films of the 30s and 40s, perhaps The 39 STEPS, SABOTEUR, THE LADY VANISHES most immediately. Director Anthony Asquith keeps a chatty script going with all sorts in in-the-camera editing. Watch them around a breakfast table, how his camera pans to the one doing the listening who will then swerve and grab the attention of a third guest, while the fluid camerawork continues in a pleasing, if somewhat dizzying, 360 degree pan. Asquith really brings out the best in his stars, including making Alistair Sim seem almost human, while Leslie Banks, as the brilliant inventor John Barrington, is simply put, astonishing just in his being himself. Was there ever an American star with so much of the ordinary person to him as Banks? Maybe Spencer Tracy, but Tracy always seems so showy and fake-sincere next to Leslie Bank's eternal get-on-with-it. Okay, so he doesn't seem like he's in the same movie as Jeanne de Cazalis, giving an over the top performance as his scatterbrained wife that would make Beatrice Lillie seem sober as Anna Akhmatova, but as though in recognition of this factor, they don't seem to have any scenes together, as though to say, it's a double feature--it's a witty surreal social comedy starring De Cazalis, and it's a slice of life story about the development of an innovative bombsight that stars Banks and the rest. So the bizarre interplay of tones make not be to everyone's liking, but the story and the direction really give a lot of pleasure to an audience, especially the audience that always wished Hitchcock had squeezed in just one more movie during his Selznick period!

Alastair Sim as the suspicious Charles Dimble is almost out-shone by 16-year-old George Cole
Wordy? A little. But this British home-front spy mystery from 1941 is also fine entertainment, reasonably exciting and features two first-rate performances by Alastair Sim as the suspicious Charles Dimble and 16-year-old George Cole as the 15-year-old London kid, Ronald, resourceful and energetic. Ronald thinks Sherlock Holmes is "the greatest man whatever lived" and is pretty good at deducing things. Bear in mind that Sim and his wife took Cole into their household when he was a boy and became Cole's foster parents. Sim saw to Cole's education. When Cole wanted to become an actor like Sim, Sim also saw to Cole's training. They appeared together in more than a dozen movies, not as a team but as two skilled comic actors.

John Barrington (Leslie Banks) is a brilliant, eccentric British inventor. He works at his grand manor house in Scotland and has almost developed a revolutionary bomb sight. The Nazis want his secrets, preferably with Barrington as well. Barrington has a flighty, well-meaning wife (at one point she kindly tells Ronald, who has nearly destroyed a suit of armor, "Never mind, never mind. Just forget what a nuisance you are.") and a good-looking daughter. He also has an assistant who longs for the daughter. Suddenly the cottage on their grounds, which had been up for rent, is taken over as a military hospital. In it goes Flight Lieutenant Perry (John Mills), a Spitfire pilot who had to bail out and landed in a nearby loch with a bad arm. Then there's Dimble, who says he had arranged to rent the cottage and now has nowhere to stay. He's put up in a room next to Perry. There's young, confident Ronald, sent up from London because of the blitz and lodged in the manor house. There's the butler, a bull-necked, taciturn man who was recently hired and a housekeeper who leaves with little notice. And before long we see Dimble has a revolver, Perry makes odd phone calls, Barrington seems over-confident, his assistant seems unduly interested in the bombsight and we learn Scotland Yard and MI-something have each sent a man up there. They have learned a Nazi spy ring has targeted Barrington and now has an agent in place. But who are the spies and who are Barrington's protectors? Well, one of the Nazi agents is not hard to figure out and one of the protectors is. The fun is in seeing how the game is played.

Cottage to Let has serious themes and clever characterizations. Barrington's well-bred wife comes from the Billie Burke school of thespianism, well-meaning and ditzy. Addressing the townsfolk who have come to the manor for the annual pageant, she quotes Churchill in honoring all the volunteers, "Never," she says, "has so much owed so many to so little." There's snappy dialogue, plenty of skullduggery, a shoot-up escape and death by rolling millstone. It's always fun to listen to the careful, well-bred diction of the upper-class coming from actors of assorted backgrounds who had to learn how to speak "properly" if they were to get leading roles. So many "girls" to be turned into "gels," so many a "here" and a "dear" to be turned into a nasal "heah" and a nasal "deah." The main actors all do fine jobs, but once again it's Alastair Sim who captures the movie. He was a superb actor with a unique style, and he is just about impossible not to watch. With Cottage to Let, however, his foster son, George Cole, just about gives him a run for his money. Cole turns in a supremely assured job as the supremely assured Ronald, no one's fool yet still a very likable young man.

Great!!
Set in Britain during the period of WWII called "The Phoney War" which lasted from 1939 to around 1942, this movie really displays the deep fears,anxietys and loyalty issues present in the British people and their government during this time. It should be remembered that the Anglo-Saxons were a Germanic tribe just as the Tuetons were. The present British royal family came frome Germany. Good acting, good story--