Sunday, May 17, 2009

Movie review – “Millions Like Us” (1943) ****

Rough rule of thumb – British war films aimed to be more realistic than Hollywood ones, and that was rarely better illustrated than in this loving slice-of-life drama about young women at war – specifically two of them who work in a factory. They are Pat Roc, who you think is going to be the sole star, but then around half an hour in the film introduce Ann Crawford as well to romance Eric Portman. Roc is very unthreateningly pretty – she was sort of the back up Phyllis Calvert (just as Jean Kent was the back up Margaret Lockwood). She has a romance with a painfully young Gordon Jackson.

The film is very socialist – it’s all about sacrifice and giving into the greater cause. Roc at the end is sitting at lunch or something but eventually joins in the singing at the end. The romance between Crawford and Portman is very much skewed in Portman’s favour. If Launder and Gilliat had been Yanks they would have been blacklisted for this!

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