in the opening scene of malta story mr a. guinness bore such a startle resemblance to noel coward that i fully expect his first word to be certain woman need strike regularly like gong or some such world weary bon mot . unfortunately his dialogue be hardly deathless prose and even the master would have have trouble bring it to life . indeed mr guinness wanders through the picture a if look for a focal point and fail to find one . and therein lie the fatal weakness of the whole movie . mr j. hawkins likewise give up early on and end up give a jack hawkins performance without an ounce of individuality . it could have be splice from any of a dozen british war movie . many of the early fifty usual suspect turn up and do their schtick to very little purpose . the luftwaffe fail to bomb malta into submission in much the same way a it fail to bring london to it knee . the courage of the maltese people in the face of incessant danger be recognise by the king and the island be award the george cross . a worthy subject you might think for a movie and but malta story do not even qualify for the term worthy in it most patronising sense . it give the appearance of be hastily cobble together to meet a deadline and perhaps before the actor lose the will to live .