The Seventh Survivor

Vaguely anticipating the plot of Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944), Leslie S Hiscott's wartime espionage thriller sees U-boat skipper Austin Trevor seeking sanctuary in Wally Patch's lighthouse, alongside the six survivors of the ship he has just sunk en route to Lisbon. Among them are a German spy and a crack British agent, but while Michael Barringer's screenplay offers multiple reasons to mistrust everyone, it provides few clues as to who's really up to no good. Haughty Martita Hunt plays cards with bluff northerner Frank Pettingell, while Italian Charles Goldner and Jane Carr have whispered conversations - and John Stuart and Linden Travers collude with the resourceful Nazi. Confining proceedings to two rooms and a staircase, Hiscott achieves sufficient suspense to make this engaging, if not particularly engrossing, and the action ultimately comes closer in tone to Michael Powell's The Phantom Light (1935).