The Small Back Room (1949)

THE SMALL BACK ROOM  (1949)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
    David Farrar, Kathleen Bryon, Jack Hawkins,
    Michael Gough, Cyril Cusack, Sidney James
Early in the Second World War, a research scientist with a bum leg battles personal demons while trying to figure out how to defuse a new German bomb. For long stretches, Powell and Pressburger leave the war completely, as the movie zeroes in on the protagonist's bouts with depression and alcohol. The climactic scene, in which he has to dismantle an explosive device using not much more than guts, guesswork and a couple of pipe wrenches, is as intense as anything in "The Hurt Locker". Nobody had those space-age, bomb-proof suits back then, either.