I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

FREEDOM RADIO is another British propaganda movie of the Second World War, but at least it remembers to be entertaining. This time around the setting is Nazi Germany, where a number of good-hearted people become disillusioned by the rise of the Nazi party and their heavy handed ways, so they set up pirate radio broadcasts in order to combat the endless propaganda of the Nazi state. It's a little odd to see familiar British character actors like Raymond Huntley and Bernard Miles playing Germans without a hint of an accent, but the story feels fresher and more original than most and the characters are sympathetic. Things build to an appropriately moving climax.

Recently Film Four in the UK has been screening vintage British films from the 30s and 40s and this entry directed by Puffin Asquith demonstrates just how superior his early work was compared with that of Carol Reed. Reed in fact tackled a similar subject to this the year previously but his Night Train To Munich is light years away from Freedom Radio which is never risible. Okay, they had ten writers on the project and a leading man and leading lady who today would seem mannered in the extreme but they were surrounded by excellent supporting players such as Raymond Huntley, Ronald Squire, Martita Hunt, Bernard Miles and Katie Johnson, so memorable some fifteen years later in the original The Ladykillers. Reed's screenplay had nothing, for example, to compare with Ronald Squire's droll comeback when asked how he enjoyed his recent trip to America 'I didn't go to America, I went to New York'. Clive Brook manages to personify decency and the outrage felt by ordinary Germans at what they observed going on around them - again Puffin employs a crisp economical montage involving boutonnieres that disappear one by one as do their owners. A fine effort.

This film is currently turning up regularly on Film4 in the UK. It's still worth watching for a flavour of the sort of stuff bring shown during the second world war. Not too propagandist - in fact most of the bad things shown proved to be fact when the war was won.Incidentally, one reviewer seems to think that the doctor was German - he was in fact Austrian (like Mr. Hitler!).I didn't realise that the action was taking place in Austria as one reviewer tells us.Like others I had no problem with the actors not trying to speak with German accents. I prefer this to half the cast speaking the Queen's (or should it be King's) English and all the 'baddies' speaking with 'evil' German accents.At the date of this comment the film is appearing on Film4.

The movie is set in Austria at the time of the Anschluss-its merger with Nazi Germany .The main character is a well respected and highly placed medical man ,Dr Karl Roder whose patients include the world's most famous ex- housepainter ,the testicularly challenged Herr Hitler himself .Roder detests the Nazi party but his actress wife Irena is less politically aware and is flattered to be appointed as a party functionary (Director of Pagenntry).Roder sees his anti-Nazi friends disappear and one ,a priest ,is murdered before his eyes .(The theme of anti-Nazi German clerics was explored in the contemporaneous movie Pastor Hall which is worth watching as well).He resolves to strike back by opening a propagandist and wholly illegal radio station -Radio Freedom with the aid of a young engineer whose fiancé has been abused by the Nazis The movie is crisply directed by the ever dependable Anthony Asquith and it makes good use of authentic period footage of Nazi rallies and parades.The cast make no attempt whatsoever to speak in German or Austrain accents and the clipped tones of the West end stage of the time are heard from leading players such as Clive Brook and Diana Wyngarde as Roder and Irena .Raymond Huntley is an impressive villain and the cast includes such stalwart supporting players as Martita Hunt ,playing a snooping neighbour,Joan Hickson and the Hammer studios luminary to be .Clifford Evans ,and Bernard Miles The movie does conjure up the sense of suspicion ,fear and distrust of the era and serves as an effective counter to the pacifist nonsense of such trash as John Ford's celluloid garbage "The World Moves On" Well made and worthy but not top drawer