The Secret Tunnel

An early Merton Park production made in the days when they were specialising in children's films before they passed the baton to the Children's Film Foundation. Dated by the young sleuths not including a girl among their number, although compensated for (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) by the gang of crooks being headed by a woman; and the gang don't get what later became their usual ritual humiliation of getting a dunking when foiled.

Despite the title, most of the action takes place outdoors on attractively sunlit East Anglian locations until the police arrive in their Bentleys.

"The Secret Tunnel" (1948) is a wonderful 49 minute film produced by Merton Park Studios and Children's Entertainment Film about an art theft (a Rembrandt) from a large country home in Britain. Two boys, one the son of the owner, the other the son of a worker on the grounds of the home, foil the robbery in the end. This is an ingenious and very well acted film that, though made for both young audiences and adults alike, plays as if it were a good guys public versus a bad guys group, not vigilante style good guys, just "we can solve this - and had better - as well as the cops - and do it before the bad guys escape". More in the idea of Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew, nevertheless, the two boys, Tony Wager and Ivor Bowyer, are loads of fun to watch. It doesn't at all seem like "a kid's show". Just happens to have two kids doing the job adults might do. And they do it with great panache. Really recommend this! Its innocence, yet wonderful panache, will please any good mystery lover. This is easily an 8 out of 10. The country house is beautiful, too. Also appearing in this British film are Murray Matheson, Gerald Pring, Thelma Rea, Frank Henderson, John H. Sullivan, and Michael Kelly. This was shot at Flixton Hall and surrounding area in Suffolk. It seems Flixton Hall was razed in 1953. Beautiful place, but someone has to pay the upkeep - or, no... They didn't...

As others have noted this is a forerunner to the CFF films which followed in which the children normally triumph over the usually adult baddies. Posh kids in this one with the later CFF ones usually featuring working class kid characters.

What a treat it is to discover a forgotten film that is so much fun! "The Secret Tunnel" is an unpretentious but well made British children's film. According to the credits it was "Made for Cinema Clubs for Boys and Girls." These cinema clubs were popular in the UK and Australia in the 1940s and 1950s. For a membership fee and a small admission fee for each show, kids would see a morning of films and live entertainment.

Anthony Wager, so very memorable as the young Pip in David Lean's "Great Expectations" made the previous year, plays Roger Henderson, the son of a very wealthy British gentleman. Roger's companion is John Wilson, son of the butler, and played wonderfully by Ivor Bowyer.

This great little movie takes us on an exciting adventure. When a painting is stolen from a basement vault at Roger's estate, the boys head off to find the missing painting and bring the crooks to justice. The action takes us into town where the boys investigate a suspicious antique dealer before they are nearly discovered and have to make a very quick get-away. Then we get to explore the estate from the basement, through the tunnel, even up a chimney and across the roof. Telephone lines are cut, the boys are captured by the smugglers and escape, and then manage to follow the crooks to their hide out. The film may be aimed at children, but adults will have fun, too.

As with most children's films its the kids who save the day and bring the crooks to justice. But unlike more recent children's films and television shows, this is not because the adults are stupid, its because the adults are away when the boys become involved in the mystery. So the boys use their brains to outwit the crooks until they can summon help.

Perhaps because it was made for the Cinema Clubs instead of for general release this film has apparently not been seen much since its initial release. It deserves at least a video release. Catch it if you can.

Where are these boys today? Anthony Wager was a fine actor but seems to have vanished with little information about him since the 1980s. Ivor Bowyer is credited with only a handful of films scattered over five decades. Although he never made a big splash he is certainly excellent in "Secret Tunnel" and it would be interesting to know where he is today.

Roundabout where I live, on the Norfolk and Suffolk borders, 'The Secret Tunnel' is known for the locations where it was filmed, both in and around Flixton Hall in north Suffolk, and in the south Norfolk town of Harleston. The Flixton connection is especially poignant as this rather imposing Victorian pile was demolished in 1953, just six years after this film was made. A very poor quality copy (perhaps fifth generation) is occasionally screened to small audiences in the area, but no-one seems to know where a decent copy exists. The film itself is an early example of what would later be made by the Children's Film Foundation, nothing very taxing plot-wise, and quite cliched. It made me laugh (in these times of gender equality and all that) that the only female cast member is a 'baddie!'