Review of The Great Game

Any movie with Diana Dors is a definite must-see, though this one – despite its great cast – just scrapes into that category. Alas, despite her prominence in the billing (in my Press Sheet, she is billed second to James Hayter), the super-lovely Diana has only a small and quite unimportant role. On the other hand, Hayter is on-screen for a good slice of the movie's eighty minutes. Despite his top billing, he seems afraid that audiences will not be thrilled by his presence, so to make sure of our constant attention, he overacts atrociously. Alas, we soon wish him back when Thora Hird and Jack Lambert get together with some of the most fatuous dialogue we've ever heard in a Britsh film. The direction, by the once-great Maurice Elvey (just a bum, I always thought, as I escorted him up the steps of the London Film School – this was before some of his great achievements in silents and early talkies were re-discovered) can at best be described as uninspired, and even the photography is dull.