Millions Like Us
Millions Like Us | |
---|---|
Jack Cox Roy Fogwell | |
Edited by | R. E. Dearing |
Music by | Louis Levy[1] |
Distributed by | Gainsborough Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 103 min |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Millions Like Us is a 1943 British propaganda film, showing life in a
It was co-written and co-directed by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder.[1] According to the British Film Institute database, this film is the first in an "unofficial trilogy", along with Two Thousand Women (1944) and Waterloo Road (1945).
Radford and Wayne reprise their roles of
Plot
The opening credits show huge crowds of workers going into factories. The narrator begins the film with nostalgic views of crowded beaches and remembering what it was like to eat an orange (unavailable during the war).
Celia Crowson and her family go on holiday to the south coast of England in the summer of 1939, staying in the guest house they visit every year. Soon afterwards, the
Fearing her father's disapproval if she moves away from home, Celia hesitates about joining up but eventually her call-up papers arrive. Hoping to join the WAAF or one of the other services, Celia instead gets posted to a factory making aircraft components, where she meets her co-workers, including her Welsh room-mate Gwen Price and the vain upper middle-class Jennifer Knowles. Knowles dislikes the work they have to do at the factory, causing friction with their supervisor Charlie Forbes which eventually blossoms into a verbally combative romance.
The stock footage clips shown early on in the film of the "factory" where the aircraft is being made show a four engine Short Stirling bomber leaving the assembly hall and then taking off. During its real life wartime manufacture that plane would be produced at twenty various locations in the United Kingdom.
A nearby
Just after returning to the factory, they find furnished rooms nearby to set up house together, but then Fred is killed in a bombing raid over Germany. Celia receives the news while working at the factory and at a mealtime shortly afterwards the band plays Waiting at the Church, without realising it had been played at Celia's wedding reception. About to break down, Celia is comforted by her fellow workers, as bombers from Fred's squadron overfly the factory en route to another raid.
Cast
- Patricia Roc as Celia Crowson / Celia Blake
- Gordon Jackson as Fred Blake
- Anne Crawford as Jennifer Knowles
- Eric Portman as Charlie Forbes
- Moore Marriott as Jim Crowson
- Basil Radford as Charters
- Naunton Wayne as Caldicott
- Joy Shelton as Phyllis Crowson
- John Boxer as Tom
- Valentine Dunn as Elsie
- Megs Jenkins as Gwen Price
- Terry Randall as Annie Earnshaw
- Amy Veness as Mrs Blythe
- John Salew as Doctor Gill
- Beatrice Varley as Miss Wells
- Bertha Willmott as the singer
- Irene Handl as Landlady
- Amy Dalby as Mrs Bourne
- John Slater as Alec, man at dance hall (uncredited)
Production
The film was originally intended as a documentary for the Ministry of Information but then their film division suggested it be done as a fictional movie and the project was produced at
Gilliat later recalled:
Anne Crawford was brought in to replace Sheila Bell, a lovely girl with a sad story. Eric Portman didn’t want to play in the film and went to Halifax and got drunk, but was threatened by Ted Black and ended by being co-operative with us. It was very demanding, being both writers and directors on the film, and the Ostrers thought the whole project ludicrous. Ted Black didn’t get on with Maurice and Bill Ostrer, who wanted to take creative credit.[6]
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is used liberally in the soundtrack. Gilliat says "we were not responsible for the terrible assault of Beethoven.[7]
Reception
The film was a hit in the
References
- ^ a b Millions Like Us, In: Programme book for Made in London Early Evening Films at the Museum of London (Museum of London and The National Film Archive), 24th season, 1992.
- ^ Brooke, Michael. "Millions Like Us (1943)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
- ^ Burton, Alan. "Launder, Frank (1906-1997)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
- ^ Brown, Geoff. "Gilliat, Sidney (1908-1994)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
- ^ a b Brown G. Launder and Gilliat, quoted in Programme book for Made in London Early Evening Films at the Museum of London (Museum of London and The National Film Archive), 24th season, 1992.
- ISBN 9780413705204.
- ^ McFarlane p 225
- ^ "FILM CABLE FROM LONDON:". Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 – 1954). Perth, WA: National Library of Australia. 17 March 1946. p. 13 Supplement: The Sunday Times MAGAZINE. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
Further reading
- Rattigan, Neil (2001). This is England: British Film and the People's War, 1939-1945. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. ISBN 978-0-8386-3862-0.
External links
- Millions Like Us at IMDb
- Millions Like Us at AllMovie
- Millions Like Us at the TCM Movie Database
- Millions Like Us at Screenonline (BFI)