Terence Rttigan and Noel Coward were the two outstanding masters of the 'well-made' play in the first half of the twentieth century in England; both gay they wrote (and in Coward's case co-directed and acted in) the two finest films about World War Two actually produced in wartime, In Which We Serve and The Way To The Stars. Both were highly versatile writers but whereas Coward was victorious in terms of novel, short story and non-fiction Rattigan had more success adapting other writers (Graham Greene, Janes Hilton) for the screen and writing original works for both big and small screens and indeed The Final Test began life s a television play which Rattigan adapted himself for the big screen working with long-time collaborator Puffin Asquith. Seen today it's little more than a finger exercise but Rattigan is such a consummate artist that he raises it by one or two notches. Arguably it holds more interest today as a time-capsule of a lost age, the 1950s with all the cast putting in first class work.
Review of The Final Test
