Professor Willingdon has had enough. Britain’s most eminent atomic scientist has gone into hiding, having first written to inform the prime minister of his demands. Unless research into The Bomb is swiftly abandoned, the professor will use the nuclear device he has stolen to blow London off the map.
Seven Days... was among the first films to directly address the subject of nuclear weapons and does so in a way that remains uncomfortable. Willingdon is not some b-movie nutter: he’s a good man driven mad by the consequences of his work. The film creates a tension between our desire to see him caught and our sympathy for his cause.
Not that it’s heavy-handed: it stands up as a solid ticking-clock thriller. And, as you’d expect from the directors of Brighton Rock, it’s a film that revels in the seedy side of the capital, the squalid B&B’s and brassy ‘theatricals’. While these external trappings may date the film, the central questions remain regrettably pertinent.
Oscar-winning thriller (for Best Writing, by Paul Dehn and James Bernard) from the Boulting Brothers.
When Professor Willingdon (Barry Jones), sends a letter to 10 Downing Street threatening to blow up the Houses of Parliament within a week unless the Government agrees to end its research into atomic weapons, it is dismissed as a hoax. But then Willingdon - and a bomb - disappears, alarm bells start to ring, and soon the whole of London is on his trail.
