Movie review - "The Malta Story" (1953) *** (warning: spoilers)

The story of the siege of Malta is one of the great epics of World War Two - the plucky little item that was bombed near constantly, crucial to the victories in North Africa, which came so close on several occasions to being invaded. The Rank organisation pulled their finger out with this tribute, ponying up for some location shooting and not one, not two but three of their biggest box office stars: Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins and Anthony Steel.

Guinness I guess is the lead - he has the biggest part, and a romance. To be honest, I found him a little creepy - he's a sort of TE Lawrence type, an airy-fairy archeologist turned pilot who is trapped in Malta and gets in trouble with Hawkins because he likes to do his own thing on missions. He falls in love with a local girl, Muriel Pavlow... but because this is the early 1950s you know that means one of them will have to die.

Pavlow's "Maltese" family (mum is Flora Robson, brother is Nigel Stock) provides some more human drama when her brother is captured as a spy - he talks about Malta being his country not Britain's, so at least this film plays lip service to colonialism. Hawkins doesn't get the chance to do much apart from glower and worry about it all, which he does very well it must be admitted.

Steel has the smallest role of the three, getting to do some light romancing of Renee Asherson (both white people, so they can both live), but mostly walking around looking handsome and letting other actors carry the drama - that's how British audiences seemed to enjoy him most.

This gets off to a tremendous start with Guinness becoming stranded, and the island under constant attack, and documentary footage well integrated. It works less well in the second half as the movie tries to take on too much - being about the Allied fightback, which is too large to convey and has to be done via reportage - instead of concentrating on human drama. However Guinness' death, done in long shot, is very well done, and it's one of the better British war films from this period.