ABSTRACT
A visitor to the Northern Isles off the tip of Scotland can't help but recognize the importance of the Second World War to their history. The films that typically populate the schedules of daytime television in Britain give little indication of the extent of the role played by the Northern Isles in the war. The Shetland Isles lie 115 miles to the north of Orkney and the special archipelago, where Scotland meets Scandinavia and the North Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean, represents the most northerly point of the British Isles. The films that make reference to the Northern Isles are The Spy in Black, Above Us the Waves Sink the Bismarck! and Suicide Mission. The attachment to landscape in The Spy in Black film is reworked to suggest a visual and dramatic appreciation of the particularities of island geographies, their historical significance and the cinematic opportunities they offer.
