Word: scientists
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...Tampering. Despite its academic prestige, Reed's money-raising problems became so acute that Political Scientist Peter H. Odegard, its fifth president, resigned in disgust. Reed went looking for a savior...
...weakness, and at the same time the strength, of Seven Days to Noon is that it is not a thrilling thriller. It concerns a conscience-stricken atomic scientist who threatens to blow up London if the British government does not give up producing bombs (he gives a seven-day ultimatum which is to expire at noon--hence the title). The issue at hand, therefore, is: will he be found and stopped before he explodes his bomb? The answer is too obvious. No one can fool himself into accepting the likelihood of something so well-established as London being blotted...
...weakness of Seven Days to Noon. But the coin has its reverse side. Perhaps because the story lacked the tension one would normally expect of a story about an atom bomb, the good brothers Boulting were obliged to introduce a whole new element into their thriller. The scientist is not chased through sewers by the cops, there are no wild car chases; instead the camera follows him as he wanders mousily around the city trying to evade the police and pass the time safely until he is due to carry out his threat...
Then, of course, we see the interesting spectacle of a deserted London occupied only by abandoned pets, the hunted scientist and several divisions of troops searching house to house for him. Even the success of this grand finale lies in the incidental glimpses of minor characters, searching soldiers mainly, not in the slowly mounting "tension," which consists mainly of sweat on the faces of the main characters...
Although we are not treated to a thriller (as the advertisement would have us believe) and although the central issue of a scientist's possible guilt and responsibility for the weapons he creates is no more than suggested, nonetheless what we do get is an absorbing and entirely original work. In these days of mass entertainment, mass produced, that is high praise...