Debt of Honour: A bit dusty, but worth a look

Is it worth your time?

If you like old British films that smell like mothballs and have absolutely no patience for modern pacing, you'll probably get a kick out of Debt of Honour. If you need your movies to have, you know, actual energy or characters who don't talk like they're reading from a pamphlet, stay away. This is for the folks who want to see how people in 1936 thought they looked while they were being noble.

The whole thing feels like a very polite argument happening in a drawing room that never ends. Leslie Banks is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, looking concerned in almost every frame. I don't blame him. There’s a lot to be concerned about when you’re stuck in a script this rigid.

The little things

• There’s a background character in the third act who seems to be holding his tea cup for an uncomfortably long time. It’s mesmerizing.
• The dialogue is so clipped it’s like they were being charged per syllable.
• The lighting in the study scene is weirdly dramatic, like they accidentally left a spot on high.

It reminds me a bit of the tone in Voice in the Night, where everything feels just a little bit too contained, like the walls are slowly closing in on the actors. There isn't much room for anyone to breathe or just be a human being.

Every time the plot starts to move, someone walks into a room and says something incredibly formal to stop it dead in its tracks. It’s almost a talent. I found myself checking my watch, not because I was bored, but because I wanted to see if the movie was aware of its own sluggishness. It clearly wasn't.

Phyllis Dare is fine, I guess. She does the 'distressed lady' thing perfectly well, but it’s a role that doesn't really let her do anything else. It's a bit like watching a well-oiled machine work through a script that was clearly written for a different era of theater. You can see the gears turning.

Anyway, it’s not a masterpiece. It’s just a movie that exists. Sometimes that’s enough, right? Maybe not today. ☕️