Celia Johnson’s character realizes at one point that Great Britain is headed for a showdown with Nazi Germany. She asks her captain husband (Noel Coward) if he thinks there’s going to be a war. The answer seems rather self-evident. But I suppose we need to see how naive some people were at the start of it all, just how unfathomable a second world war was to them. A subsequent scene in which we hear Churchill telling them over the radio that indeed there is another war provides us with some chilling realism.
Though Johnson and the other wives don’t exactly dominate the film, since their scenes are far and few between and mostly seen in flashback, they do manage to make an impact. For it is because of their safety and the future that may be had with these women that the men have gone off to battle and intend to defeat the Germans. Much of it is fairly standard propaganda; except for the sinking of the ship in the beginning and a home being blasted by a bomb during a blitz scene, none of it seems as dark or frightening as it might have been.
We know that Coward’s screenplay is only working towards one end, and that is the depiction of brave British men and women. The one who is shown to be a coward (Richard Attenborough) quickly comes to his senses and regains his valiant Britishness.
None of the men are shown to be morally compromised; they’re all almost perfect, led by a nearly perfect officer (Coward). So there is no real dimension to them as human beings, and several of the actors give very wooden performances.
The best one in the cast, or at least the one who gives the most well-rounded performance, is John Mills. We see his earnest devotional qualities, but we also see some of his silly immaturity. When his character is married and he goes off on a honeymoon, he allows us to glimpse the newness of the situation through his eyes. His character grows as a result, because Mills as an actor is committed to having his character evolve, even if the script doesn’t always lend itself in that direction.
In addition to Mills’ performance, the film benefits from some fine action sequences directed by David Lean. However, I did feel as if the picture had two distinct personalities…the tense, moving action scenes on one hand; and talky stage bound scenes on the other hand. It felt as if Lean was giving us a story for the screen, while Coward was giving us a story for the theater. If the viewer can reconcile these key differences, then it is not a terrible experience watching the whole thing unfold.
But at nearly two hours with so many flashbacks that do not seem to advance the story forward, but instead take the characters backward, it can be a bit frustrating to watch. While I appreciated the sincerity of the piece, I found that many parts of it tested my patience. A good half hour could have been trimmed.
Another thing I want to mention is that I didn’t feel Coward knew the full backgrounds of these characters; they didn’t seem conceived as complete personages; just fragments of lives during a specific period in war. I think Coward did a much better job with CAVALCADE a decade earlier, which was anti-war.
Of or Involving Motion Pictures 