THE NIGHT MY NUMBER CAME UP (1955)

An RAF base in Hong Kong is dealing with news of a missing aircraft over Japan when Michael Hordern arrives with advice about where to look for the plane. Even though the last message came from mid-Japan, he suggests scouring the northwest coast. We flashback to a couple nights earlier when, over cocktails, Hordern is regaling a group of people with a story of a dream he had in which he saw a small plane develop engine trouble and crash on a rocky coast in northern Japan. He remembers lots of details about the flight (a small Dakota airplane; 13 people on board including a woman and a brash, obnoxious man; a snowstorm) and one of the passengers was his friend Alexander Knox, who is listening to the story now. At first the story just seems odd and interesting but not relevant; Knox and RAF officer Michael Redgrave are going to take a small plane to Tokyo the next day to attend a conference, but the plane is a Liberator, no woman will be on board, and there will be fewer than 13 passengers. But when Redgrave informs Knox that their plane is unavailable and the substitute is a Dakota, Knox--a diplomat who has avoided flying all his life--gets a little nervous. By the next morning, things are looking even stranger: a woman has joined the group, and at the last minute, they take on two soldiers who need to get back to their base, making 13 on the plane. Redgrave and his assistant (Denholm Elliott) don't seem worried but Knox is tense, and eventually a storm causes trouble. They manage to land at Okinawa safe and sound to spend the night and the two extra soldiers leave. But when Knox finds out that Redgrave has okayed the booking of two more passengers (one of them a brash, obnoxious man), he freaks out and considers not going on. But he does, and an even worse storm hits, sending them over, yes, a rocky coast in northern Japan… 

This has a distinct Twilight Zone feel to it--I wonder what people used as a reference for this kind of plot before The Twilight Zone existed? And like some Zone episodes, it feels a bit long at times even though it's only 90 minutes. But it manages to be a nice character piece--we get to know several people, not just Redgrave and Knox but also Elliott, the woman (Sheila Sim), the pilot (Nigel Stock) and the brash fellow (George Rose). At times it has a disaster movie feel to it and both storm scenes are effective at sustaining tension. The acting is very good all around. Redgrave, who could be a showy actor, underplays nicely, and Knox is good at suggesting a man who is frequently approaching a meltdown and just barely keeping it together. There are suggestions of larger thematic issues but they don't really pan out. Set after WWII, war issues are nevertheless present: we discover that Elliott had a nervous breakdown after flying in the Battle of Britain, and some of the passengers mention wanting to fly over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which they do. A concern with free will and destiny is voiced briefly at the beginning but that goes nowhere. Still, this is a very effective B-budget thriller which manages to be tense and unsettling while mixing in humor and character drama. The DVD commentary track by Samm Deighan is disappointing. She starts off well with some discussion of a genre I was not familiar with called "film blanc" (basically uplifting stories of the supernatural) but her talk is full of "sort ofs" and "kind ofs" and "as I said earlier…" to the point of distraction. She is also rarely scene-specific about what we’re seeing. I think the commentary should get a do-over.  Pictured are Redgrave and Knox. [DVD]