CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

chaswe-28402 Great to see dear old post-war London, beaten up and bombed to bits, as we knew it in 1950, five years after the end of WWII, but still going strong. Not too difficult to film those scenes of an evacuated city, then still the largest in the world. The whole place used to shut down every Sunday; no shops no traffic. Silent and calm. Impossible today: traffic is worse on Sundays than on weekdays. Make no mistake; people used to talk just like that in those days, even the cockneys. English people really used to be straight up and down, except for the spivs and wide boys of course.Beautifully well-written, well-paced, well-acted. Jones and Sloane were outstanding in their roles, and so natural. I thought I spotted Sean Connery among the extras, but perhaps not. The narrative flows excellently, keeps one gripped and keen to know what happens next. Stimulating political theme. The old man had to be shot in the end, it wouldn't be right to have him dissolve in tears in front of his daughter. Not too difficult to figure out the ending, but it was still fascinating to see how it would be brought about. Efficient, effective, humane policemen in that bygone age; but naturally always a few skivers in the army's lower ranks.It sure is great to see people lighting up at every opportunity. You could tell what class a person was by the way they smoked their cigarettes. Lower classes kept the ciggy stuck on their lips, while they were talking. Mrs Peckett was a canny, well-developed character. She queried Willingdon's fake name, for some suspicious reason, after figuring he might be an actor. One reviewer thinks he was called Willoughby. Nothing compared to the name on the DVD case I've ended up with: there he's weirdly called Bullington, would you believe. Middle classes tapped their ciggies on the case, before igniting crisply, and puffing to keep their hands busy. Dead days long gone beyond recall. This film should be preserved, as of permanent cultural and historic value.

blanche-2 London has "Seven Days to Noon" before it faces destruction in this 1950 cold war film starring Barry Jones, Hugh Lane, Olive Sloane, and Joan Hickson. Jones plays Professor Willingdon, an overwrought scientist whose work in the atomic field has gotten to him; he feels his life's work is being used for evil rather for good. He sends a letter to the Prime Minister warning that if the government doesn't stop making nuclear weapons, he is going to blow up London the following Sunday. Willingdon then disappears from his job and family and hides out in London with an atom bomb in a suitcase.Stories about the possible destruction of humanity are never out of style, and, though low-budget, "Seven Days to Noon" is no exception. Though the end (at least for this viewer) was never in doubt, the film holds interest, with good acting, good pacing, and suspense.Two character actresses are standouts: Olive Sloane as a woman taken hostage by the scientist, and Joan Hickson, known today for playing Miss Marple on Masterpiece Theatre, as a landlady who is suspicious of him. Jones is very good as the disturbed Willingdon.Very good, recommended.

bkoganbing Seven Days To Noon is ironically one of those films that has grown into the times rather than be dated. It's certainly a relevant film given the threat of nuclear terror today. But back in 1950 I don't believe the technical expertise was there so that Barry Jones or anyone else could have put a device like that in a briefcase. Take a look at pictures of Fat Man and Little Boy the code names for the weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those things could not have fit in a briefcase and developments hadn't advanced that far in five years. Now sad to say it actually could be done.Barry Jones is an atomic scientist who is suffering from fatigue and overwork and a questioning mind about what exactly he's developing. His mind snaps and he takes one of the weapons Great Britain has been developing and sends a letter to the Prime Minister. Issue a statement you'll stop the program or he's going to explode his package on Sunday at high noon.That sets up a manhunt for Jones throughout the United Kingdom, but especially of course in London. His note does specify the seat of the government. Andre Morrell as a Scotland Yard Inspector, Hugh Cross as one of his fellow scientists who will have to disarm the device once located, and Sheila Manahan as his daughter lead the search for Jones and the package of destruction he has.Despite the fact that it was a technological impossibility in 1950, Seven Days To Noon is still an effective thriller of a film, worthy of a Hitchcock. It's interesting that they came close to getting Jones a few times before they do catch up. Best in the film is Olive Sloane the frowzy former music hall entertainer who Jones holds as a hostage for a while. She wants to do her bit as well as she's trying to get to Aldershot to entertain the troops.Seven Days To Noon got an Oscar for Best Screen Story. It remains one of the few films that actually grew technologically and became more relevant now than when it first came out.

lucy-19 A wonderful picture of London in the 50s, and an insight into the way people behaved, and were treated, during the war - patient crowds sitting on railway platforms waiting to be evacuated (Come along, ma! No, lad, you can't take that chicken!). I can't see or hear the married couples calling each other "darling" that another reviewer complained of - there's an engaged couple and he calls her "darling" about twice. Watch out for Joss Ackland as an eager copper and Jonathan Cecil as a young officer. The aging "actress" is simply wonderful and the relationship between her and Prof. Willingdon quite touching. ("He was a gentleman and I treated him as such - as he did me!") Lovely to see Joan Hickson as a cat-loving landlady, living in a house untouched for fifty years and crammed with Victorian nicknacks. What would they be worth now!