THE NIGHT MY NUMBER CAME UP is a disaster film with a difference; it opens with Michael Hordern having a frightening dream, or perhaps a premonition, of a plane crash-landing on the north coast of Japan. The film that goes back in time to recount the events of a fateful trip, in which a motley group of passengers find themselves on a seemingly disaster-bound flight. This is a neat thriller which feels much like the FINAL DESTINATION of its day, although better plotted and acted. Michael Redgrave headlines the cast in a typically refined and likable performance, but nobody here puts a foot wrong, really, and all of the assembled actors give strong performances. It's one of those quiet suspense thrillers that nonetheless grips you from beginning to end, so that you're absolutely riveted come the inevitable climax. Another winner from Ealing, in other words.

The British air command in Japan is searching for a missing plane. A man walks in, tells them they're looking in the wrong place, and soon they are looking someplace else entirely. We then flash back and see the man telling an interesting cast (including Michael Redgrave, Sheila Sim, Alexander Knox and a very young Denholm Elliot) about his prophetic dream of their crash... and watch as the unlikely details of that event build up.

One of the things that annoy me about movies in this period is their sloth. Of course, someone who appreciate such things will refer to it as 'a leisurely pace', but to me the time has to be filled up with something cinematically interesting: good performances, or striking visuals. This movie, filmed almost entirely on interior sets including more than half in the narrow confines of an airplane interior. With a lack of unusual things to shoot, and little taste for Dutch angles, the visuals are lacking. Likewise the characters are little more than brief sketches, although Knox is excellent as a man who falls under the sway of superstitious fear as events unfold.

Of course, that slow pace can be used to build up suspense, but that needs to be handled delicately, allowing a certain amount of doubt to linger. There's very little of that here.

The major fault of this movie lies in the construction and conclusion of its story. If ever a film's story-line needed an unexpected twist, this picture is the number one contender. The plot hinges upon a dream that an airline passenger experienced. In the dream, the plane crashed. So, when the passenger actually boards the plane, events soon start to match the dream. The plot thus poses a simple question: Will the plane crash or will it not? A really on- the-ball director may have been able to make something of this repetitive narrative, but Leslie Norman is not that director. His background was in film editing too! So why he didn't make some effort to speed it up, is beyond me. Yet, I see the movie has received some excellent reviews. Maybe they were swayed by Rank publicity that the story was true. In any case, it would seem that many people obviously like a slow, repetitive approach with every point emphasized at least twice over. But frankly, I believe some of these enthusiasts are not actually reviewing the 94 minutes version at all. With commercial breaks, that version would certainly run for two hours on TV. Of course, it's possible that when broken up by commercials, the plot may not seem so repetitive. (Contemporary movies in which the emphasis is on speed, speed and more speed – and never mind logic – must drive them crazy).