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DVD In Which We Serve
Based on the true story of Lord Mountbatten's destroyer, In Which We Serve is one of the most memorable British films made during World War II. Unfolding in flashback as survivors cling to a dingy, the film interweaves the history of HMS Torrin with the onshore lives of its crew. The 1942 film was the inspiration of Noel Coward, who desperately wanted to do something for the war effort, and he produced, wrote the screenplay, composed the stirring score, and starred as Captain Edward Kinross. Coward also officially codirected, though he handed the reigns to David Lean (in his directorial debut). There is fine support from Celia Johnson and John Mills, as well as a star-making debut from an uncredited Richard Attenborough. The use of real navy and army personnel as extras, together with lavish studio production and authentic shipboard location footage, lends the film an unusual sense of realism. A landmark in the careers of many of the most important names in British film, this moving and occasionally harrowing classic has a vital place in the development of British cinema. --Gary S. Dalkin
Wonderful perspective of the English view during wartime. Might seem a little phony at times, but keep in mind this is 1942 when the world looked at things differently.
DVD quality (Westlake)is OK. The picture is excellant, however, about 2/3 of the way through, there were several bad glitches.
The spirit of WW2 Britain. If interested in getting a feel for that time, see this film (& "Hope & Glory" & "Mrs Miniver").
This film accomplishes what so many wartime films fail to---that is, return the viewer to the time period in question & hold one there. Too many films of the Second World War have the feel of modern times that just happen to be set in the past; and don't affect one viscerally to any significant extent. 1940s Britain, particularly when that island stood alone, is a hard mood to capture, but this film succeeds herein. Contrary to some other reviewers here, this film isn't propagandistic (in the manner that that term is usually viewed). It simply presents the gravity of the era (1939-1941) in which it was shot (1942) in almost real time; when Britain was hanging on precariously as the Royal Navy kept it afloat, so to speak. Showing bravery, British mettle, and presenting British resistance against Hitler's Nazism is patriotic sure, but not propagandistic as well. Sometimes issues are Black & White, contrary to those who desire to see shades of gray in everything as a matter of self-perceived personal intellectual superiority. To show Britain fighting valiantly is not akin to Goebbels championing German braveness. The night of long knives, the state-sanctioned racism, the holocaust, the brutality of the Germans in occupied lands do not have equivalents on the British side. Certainly not in relation to the Second War War. "In which we Serve" is simply a fine film which captures an era & for anyone who wants to understand that era (viscerally even) one would be well served by giving it some of your time. Cheers!
There a 3 films made in WW2 in England...
...that you simply HAVE to see, "Mrs Miniver" being one, a little known film dealing with a fictitious German invasion to a sweet English Village, "Went the day well?" and this film.
Why so? Because all 3 were made at the start of the war (early 40's) when England stood very much alone in the fight agaisnt Hitler and aggresive facism. Invasion fears were rife, the war effort looked hopeless at times as in Europe, Hitler opposing country after country fell to the German aggressors (not to mention the rampage going on in Africa at the hands of Rommel aided by the Italian forces under Mussolini's instruction). England's small island identity stood alone and under threat and was bombed, starved and demoralised into feeling invasion could happen any day. It was quite possibly the darkest of times in English History and these three films capture the flavour of that dispondancy but equally the might of the will to survive and protect, with realistic perfection. In which we serve does this more personally as we know it is based in truth and the characters become dear and well rounded quite quickly, inspiring us to care about these folk from many walks of British life.
For a modern audience it may seem a little over stoic and sentimental at times but place the emotion in context of the year it was made (1942), and I guarantee you will view it an aching sense of fear and hope which was precisely Coward's plan.
An absolute gem and a must see, I weep every time I watch it.
Some movies you just have to love. Oh, they may be well, even beautifully, made; wonderfully cast and stirringly acted; uplifting in theme and noble in motive. That's fine. In fact, that's great. For that, you admire them. But you love them because they are perfect distillations of a mood, of a moment in the history of filmmaking, of a breed of imagination that, like the best of fairy tales, transcends the tides of taste and empire, and certainly of political correctness.
Consider The Four Feathers, produced in England in 1939, at Alexander Korda's London Films studios, where a family of Hungarian expatriates aspired to exalt their newly adopted country, its history and traditions, and also to out-Hollywood Hollywood. With this film, they realized both ambitions, in spades.
Over the years I have with effort to see a large number of British films and had seen four of the five films in this collection. In all four cases, however, the print I saw was vastly inferior to the superb prints contained in this fascinating set of films. So far I've seen three sets of DVDs from Ealing: one featuring the films of Alec Guinness, another containing several non-Guinness comedies, and this collection of war films. I hope that they don't stop with these. Although the sets are remarkable for the utter and complete absence of extras (and by none I truly do mean none), the prints themselves have in ever instance been impeccable. A bit about each film.
THE DAM BUSTERS--Of all the films in the set, this is the one that is most widely available. I first saw... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 22 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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A real beauty of a true story provides the basis for The Man Who Never Was, a gripping World War II picture that has no combat scenes, no great vistas of troops. The time is 1943, as the Allies prepare the invasion of Sicily and desperately need a diversionary ploy to make the Germans suspect another invasion target. The solution is simple but ingenious: a dead man's body will be left in the sea to float ashore on the coast of Spain; made to look like a British pilot, he will be carrying papers suggesting an Allied attack on Greece. When the papers fall to the Nazis, they'll swallow the bogus story…or will they? The film's final third tracks an Irish spy for the Axis (Steven Boyd, in one of his first roles) as he travels to London to investigate loose ends.
Nineteen thirty-nine is often proposed as the movies' halcyon year, and three reasons why were directed by John Ford: Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, and Drums Along the Mohawk. In that exalted company Drums... would have to be accounted "merely superb"--even if it's the best film ever made about the American Revolution and, oh, only about eighth-best picture of its year.
Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert play newlyweds in New York's Mohawk Valley at the time of the Revolutionary War. That war is more a distant rumor than a direct concern of people with cabins to raise, crops to harvest, and firstborn on the way. When it comes to their valley, in the form of hitherto-peaceable Indians whipped up by a gaunt Tory with an eyepatch (John Carradine), life changes... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Claudette Colbert - Henry Fonda - Edna May Oliver Director(s): John Ford DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This big, boisterous adventure is more inspired by than based on Rudyard Kipling's famous poem. Legendary screenwriters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur have fashioned a rousing Hollywood movie full of high adventure, knockabout comedy, and old-fashioned male bonding. And old-fashioned it is: the trio of British officers and best friends who form the core of the film are a 19th-century three musketeers in India, threatened by the interventions of a woman who means to marry the dashing Ballantine (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). Blustery commander MacChesney (Victor McLaglen) schemes to keep Ballantine in the army while his second in command, the treasure-hunting Cutter (Cary Grant in a hopelessly mugging comic performance), continues searching for his elusive mother lode, but all their plans are... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Cary Grant - Joan Fontaine Director(s): George Stevens DVD Release Date: Released the 07 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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