ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – MRS. MINIVER (1942)

 

“Mrs. Miniver” is a romantic war drama based on the story by Jan Struther and directed by William Wyler.

It tells the story of the Miniver’s, an English middle-class family, as they experience life in the first months of World War II.

The film opens with Mrs Miniver (Greer Garson) returning on the train to the idyllic village where she lives after a shopping trip to London and is desperately trying to figure out how to tell her husband Clem (Walter Pidgeon) she has squandered far too much on a frivolous new hat, although she needn’t have worried because Clem was in a similar position as he’d bought himself a new car.

When she disembarks from the train, the stationmaster, Mr. Ballard (Henry Travers), asks Mrs Miniver’s permission to name a rose he's cultivated after her for the flower show, and her gracelful acceptance brings about her first encounter with Lady Beldon (Dame May Whitty) the formidable Lady of the Manor.

However it was not to be the last, because their oldest son, Vin (Richard Ney), having left Oxford for the RAF, courts and marries Lady Beldon's granddaughter Carol (Teresa Wright).

But war touched the people of the village, Clem took his small boat to Dunkirk and his wife captured a downed German Pilot and again more tragically when a bad raid took the lives of several villagers on the day of the flower show, including newlywed Carol.

The film won a host of Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actress for Greer Garson, Best Supporting Actress for Teresa Wright, Best Director for William Wyler, and all well deserved.
While there were also other nominations, Walter Pidgeon for Best Actor, Henry Travers for Best Supporting Actor and Dame May Witty for Best Supporting Actress, but lost to her fellow cast member Teresa Wright.
I think it was the penultimate scene between Greer Garson and Teresa Wright that won them both Oscars.

But judge for yourselves, I would suggest that you have to see it, I can't say more than that; the hardest of hearts will be moved.

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – THE DAWN PATROL (1938)

 

“Dawn Patrol” is a war drama based on the story by John Monk Saunders and Directed by Edmund Goulding.

In 1915 in France, Major Brand (Basil Rathbone) has the burden of command of the 39th Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps sending pilots to almost certain death every day.

The young airmen go up daily in bullet-riddled “crates” and the casualty rate is appalling, but Brand can't make the high command at headquarters see reason, and if that was not enough insubordinate air ace Captain Courtney (Errol Flynn) and his sidekick Scott (David Niven) are constant thorns in Brand's side.

The film is a very gritty and accurate look at life, and death, in a Royal Flying Corps fighter squadron and has a strong supporting cast including, Donald Crisp, Melville Cooper, Barry Fitzgerald, Carl Esmond, Peter Willes and Morton Lowry.

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – WHERE EAGLES DARE (1968)

 Where Eagles Dare is a WW2 drama film, screenplay written by Alistair MacLean based on his book of the same name and, directed by Brian G. Hutton.

After a British Mosquito aircraft is shot down over Nazi held territory, the Germans capture American Brigadier General George Carnaby (Robert Beatty), and take him to the nearby S.S. headquarters at the Schloss Adler, the Castle of Eagles, because the Germans believe the General is privy to details of the D-Day operation.

So Admiral Rolland (Michael Hordern) and Colonel Turner (Patrick Wymark) of British Intelligence assemble a crack commando team led by Major Jonathan Smith (Richard Burton) to rescue him before he can divulge any details of the plans for the Normandy landings.

Amongst the team of Brits is an American Ranger, Lieutenant Morris Schaffer (Clint Eastwood), who is puzzled by his inclusion in an all British operation, and when two of the team are killed soon after arriving in Germany, Schaffer suspects that Smith's mission has more than one objective.

It’s a fast moving war movie with plenty of action and a number of twists and turns along the way to hold your attention all the way to the tense unexpected ending.

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – THE VIRGIN QUEEN (1955)

 

“The Virgin Queen” is a Historic drama directed by Henry Koster and written by Harry Brown and Mindret Lord.

Sir Walter Raleigh (Richard Todd) overcomes court intrigue to gain an audience with Queen Elizabeth I (Bette Davis) and through charm soon wins her favour, his motive is to get financing for a proposed voyage to the New World and make a name for England.

But it’s a stormy relationship between the aging Queen and Raleigh, so when he becomes attracted to a young ward of the court, Beth Throgmorton (Dame Joan Collins), and she strongly returns the attraction, he must tread carefully as Elizabeth soon shows her desire for him and he must bend in order to achieve his goal, even though he loves Beth, but it’s a dangerous game to play with the stubborn Queen’s affections, so will jealousy of Raleigh’s youthful love lead to his downfall.

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – THE GUNS OF NAVARONE (1961)

The Guns of Navarone, is a classic War movie based on the Alistair MacLean novel of the same name and directed by J. Lee Thompson.

A British led team of six Allied and Greek soldiers is sent to the Greek island of Navarone, occupied by German forces, to destroy the massive German gun emplacement that commands a key sea channel, which threatens the safe evacuation of British troops from a neighbouring island.

As if the mission is not perilous enough, with such a large German presence on the island, they also have a traitor in their midst.

The menacing naval guns are embedded in a cliff with a big rock overhang, so the RAF are unable to destroy them from air, which is why a commando team is put together under the command of Maj. Roy Franklin (Anthony Quayle), a renowned mountain climber, Capt. Keith Mallory (Gregory Peck) to get them up the formidable cliffs, a couple of native Greeks, Col. Andrea Stavros (Anthony Quinn) and Spyros Pappadimos (James Darren), explosives man, Cpl. John Anthony Miller (David Niven), and a tough anti-fascist veteran of the Spanish Civil War, CPO 'Butcher' Brown (Stanley Baker) and they are joined on the island by resistance fighters Maria Pappadimos (Irene Papas) and Anna (Gia Scala).

The film is full of tension as the group keep getting into and out of one situation after another and it crackles with excitement up to the dramatic conclusion, a film not be missed. 

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – COTTAGE TO LET (1941)

“Cottage to Let” is a wartime comedy thriller, based on the play by Geoffrey Kerr, adapted by Anatole de Grunwald and J.O.C. Orton and Directed by Anthony Asquith.

The story is centred around a Scottish Estate during World War II with a cottage to let where the landowner is also a key British military inventor John Barrington (Leslie Banks), who is working to perfect a bomb sight with his assistant Alan Trently (Michael Wilding).

So it is no surprise that the cottage becomes a focus of attention when,  not only the new tenant Charles Dimble (Alastair Sim), but a London evacuee Ronald (George Cole) and a downed RAF fighter pilot Flt·Lieut. Perry (John Mills), all arrive at the same time, no thanks to the very scatterbrained Mrs. Barrington (Jeanne De Casalis).

The Germans are desperate to get their hands on the new bomb sight or its creator and someone either in the main house or the cottage is a Nazi agent and the only security is a Scotland Yard flatfoot posing as the Butler Evans (Wally Patch).

Other characters crucial to the tale are Mrs. Trimm (Muriel George), Dr. Truscott (Hay Petrie), Mrs. Stokes (Catherine Lacey) and the romantic interest comes from Helen Barrington (Carla Lehmann).

Cottage to Let is a very enjoyable film and should not be missed. 

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – RANDOM HARVEST (1942)

 

“Random Harvest” is a romantic drama, based on James Hilton’s book of the same name and directed by Mervyn LeRoy.

Charles Rainier (Ronald Colman) a shell shocked veteran of World War I wanders out of the sanatorium and meets music hall star Paula Greer Garson who nurses him back to health and marry and settle happily into a quiet humble life, until he is involved in an accident which restores his original memories of a former life of wealth and privilege while erases all recollection of his post-war life.

So, a quiet and humble man disappears, and another man long missing as a casualty of war, turns up and claims his vast inheritance.

So, what of his devoted wife Paula, whom he no longer recognizes, what is she to do to reclaim her love? And will love conquer all in the end?

The film remains true to the Hilton novel and is one of the most beautiful and tender movies I have ever seen.

The acting is flawless, the cinematography memorable, the characterizations multi-dimensional, the scenery gorgeous and the peerless direction adds to the pleasure.

A strong supporting cast aids the story telling

Susan Peters as Kitty, Henry Travers as Dr Sims, Reginald Owen as Biffer, Bramwell Fletcher as Harrison and Philip Dorn as Dr Benet.

A film not to be missed.

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – D-DAY THE SIXTH OF JUNE (1956)

D-Day the Sixth of June, Directed by Henry Koster, tells the tale of a love triangle involving a British Officer, Lt Colonel John Wynter (Richard Todd), American Captain Brad Parker (Robert Taylor) and Red Cross Nurse Valerie Russell (Dana Wynter).

The story unfolds aboard an allied transport on the eve of D-Day shown in flashback, as the two officers reminisce about their individual relationships with the beauteous English Rose.

But who will the nurse choose? A married American Staff Officer or the gung ho British Lt Colonel.

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – WENT THE DAY WELL? (1942)

“Went the Day Well?” is a World War II thriller, based on the story by Graham Greene and Directed by Alberto Cavalcanti.

The residents of an English village during WWII welcome a platoon of soldiers who are to be billeted with them, but the trusting residents eventually discover that the soldiers are really German paratroopers who proceed to hold the village captive in advance of a planned invasion.

The Germans block all the roads, so no one is allowed in or out, so the villagers must try to smuggle someone out to alert the outside world to the impending invasion.     

 

“Went the Day Well?” is one not to be missed and is very watchable with a large familiar cast that reads as a veritable who’s who of British Cinema in the 1930’s and 40’s including;

Leslie Banks, C.V. France, Valerie Taylor, Marie Lohr, Harry Fowler, Norman Pierce, Frank Lawton, Elizabeth Allan, Thora Hird, Muriel George, Patricia Hayes, Mervyn Johns, Hilda Bayley, Edward Rigby, Johnnie Schofield, Ellis Irving, Philippa Hiatt, Grace Arnold, Basil Sydney, David Farrar and John Slater.

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – FOR THOSE IN PERIL (1944)

“For Those in Peril” is a World War II drama, screenplay written by Harry Watt, J.O.C. Orton and T.E.B. Clarke from a story by Richard Hillary and Directed by Charles Crichton.

 

Pilot Officer Rawlings (Ralph Michael) joined the RAF because he wanted to fly but after the MO wouldn’t sign him fit to fly, he is posted to the RAF Air Sea Rescue squadron operating in the English Channel and he makes no secret of the fact to his commanding officer Flt.Lt. Murray (David Farrar) that he considers his new posting second best.

However, under Murrays leadership he soon learns there are more important things than flying as the rescue boats go out in all conditions picking up downed pilots and taking them to safety.

 

This film dramatization was filmed in the summer of 1943, to highlight the contribution of the Air Sea Rescue Service to the war effort.

Produced with the cooperation of both the Air Ministry and the Admiralty and is too all intents and purposes director Charles Crichton's first feature. 

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – THE SMALL BACK ROOM (1949)

 

“The Small Back Room” is a World War II drama, Written and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, from the Novel’s by Nigel Balchin.

The film is sometimes known as Hour of Glory and tells the story of bomb disposal during World War II and is in essence a tale of redemption.

The Germans have begun to drop a new terror weapon, explosive booby-traps, and Sammy Rice (David Farrar) is tasked with learning how to disarm the deadly devices, along with Capt. Dick Stuart  (Michael Gough), but first they have to get their hands on one intact.

Sammy also has to beat his private battle with alcohol, his form of self medication due to the loss of one of his feet.

In addition there is his relationship with Susan (Kathleen Byron) which is sexually charged, but heart achingly poignant.

It’s a superbly mounted drama dripping with realism and infused with atmospheric black and white photography.

Co stars Jack Hawkins, Leslie Banks, Cyril Cusack, Milton Rosmer, Robert Morley and Sidney James help to make this terribly underrated movie. 

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – DUNKIRK (1958)

“Dunkirk” is a World War II drama, screenplay by David Divine and W.P. Lipscomb based on the Novel’s by Lt. Col. Ewan Butler, Major J.S. Bradford M.B.E. M.C. and Trevor Dudley Smith and Directed by Leslie Norman.

Dunkirk is a dramatization of the British Expeditionary Force's 1940 retreat to the beaches of France and the extraordinary seaborne evacuation, Operation Dynamo, which saved it from utter destruction by Nazi Germany.

It’s actually two stories in one, firstly, seen through the eyes of a squad of infantrymen, and their leader, Corporal 'Tubby' Binns (John Mills), an easygoing soldier who finds himself responsible for the lives of his men when their officer is killed and he has to get them back to Britain somehow.

The second story concerns British civilians John Holden (Richard Attenborough), Charles Foreman (Bernard Lee) and Frankie (Sean Barrett) who are drafted into the war to get the French and British forces back from the Dunkirk beaches in their little river cruisers.

The two stories finally converge on the Dunkirk beaches.

 

Over 300,000 Allied troops escaped, living to fight another day. This, and the method to evacuate them - the large scale use of civilian craft of all shapes and sizes, bolstered British morale and ultimately kept Britain in the war.

 

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOUR (1937)

 

“Knight Without Armour” is a historical drama, screenplay by Tom Mankiewicz based on the novel by James Hilton and Directed by Jacques Feyder.

The story revolves around A.J. Fothergill (Robert Donat), a fluent Russian speaker, who is recruited as a British agent and sent to spy on the Bolshevik revolutionary movement in 1913, shortly before World War I started.

He plays his part so well that he's captured as a revolutionary and imprisoned in Siberia and is held their until the 1917 uprisings when the revolutionary forces free the political prisoners and Fothergill now has to try and make his way home to Britain.
In a parallel story aristocrat Alexandra (Marlene Dietrich) is shocked one morning when she wakes up to find her servants have fled because the Russian Revolution had come to town, and she realises she has to leave her home as the Bolsheviks are executing Czarist’s without hesitation.

It’s after that how she comes to cross paths with Fothergill, and amid the turmoil of the civil war between the red and white armies, they try to flee Russia.

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED (1950)

 

“They Were Not Divided” is a World War II drama, written and Directed by Terence Young.

The movie begins in a World War II at Caterham Barracks training depot of a British Guards Armoured Regiment where recruits from many walks of life learn to survive the strict discipline and training before going into battle in tanks.

The story features Philip Hamilton (Edward Underdown) and David Morgan (Ralph Clanton) in their interactions with their comrades like Smoke O'Connor (Michael Brennan) and Major “Bushey” Noble (Michael Trubshawe) and their respective personal relationships, Wilhelmina (Helen Cherry) and Jane (Stella Andrew).

Once the training is over the film follows the Guards as they leave England on D-Day and follows them as the Allied front progress’s deeper into Europe.

There is a cameo appearance by the real Regimental Sergeant Major Brittain, who was famous in the British Guards Regiments.

 

This film particular significance for me as my father was a Sherman Tank Driver with the Guards Armoured Division and “They Were Not Divided” mirrored the path he took into Europe.

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – IN WHICH WE SERVE (1942)

“In Which We Serve” is a World War II drama, written by Noël Coward   and Directed by Noël Coward and David Lean.

It tells the story of a British Naval Destroyer, H.M.S. Torrin, from its construction on the Clyde to its sinking during action in the Mediterranean Sea in World War II, and is told in flashbacks by the survivors as they cling to a life raft.

Among them are the ship's commanding officer Captain E.V. Kinross (Noël Coward), Ordinary Seaman Shorty Blake (John Mills), Chief Petty Officer Walter Hardy (Bernard Miles), Stoker (Richard Attenborough) and Flags (Michael Wilding).

But although the men have served valiantly and heroically in their time aboard the Torrin we also get to see the stoic and determined women behind them, Alix Kinross (Celia Johnson), Freda Lewis (Kay Walsh), Kath Hardy (Joyce Carey) and Maureen (Penelope Dudley Ward).

 

“In Which We Serve” is a shameless story about naval heroism and was based on Lord Mountbatten's wartime experiences, and is a compelling and highly rated piece of British cinema history. 

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – THEY MET IN THE DARK (1943)

“They Met in the Dark” is a World War II romantic drama, written by Miles Malleson from the novel by Anthony Gilbert and Directed by Karel Lamac.

The story is set during World War II when, a Royal Navy Commander, Richard Francis Heritage (James Mason) is tricked by a pretty girl who unbeknown to him is working for the Nazis and, although he is unaware of it at the time, he reveals military secrets which leads to the loss of a Ship to a U-Boat, and he is court-martialed as a result, but he vows to track the girl and her accomplices down.

But when he seeks out the girl he is directed to cottage where he stumbles upon her murdered body, then as he is leaving he bumps into another woman Laura Verity (Joyce Howard) and after a shaky start they set off together to discover a network of Nazi spies and Fifth-Columnists. 

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – THE WAY AHEAD (1944)

 “The Way Ahead” is a World War II drama, written by Eric Ambler and Peter Ustinov and Directed by Carol Reed.

The movie begins with a number of British recruits being plucked from various walks of life on civvie street, Ted Brewer (Stanley Holloway), Evan Lloyd (James Donald), Luke (John Laurie), Sid Beck (Leslie Dwyer), Herbert Davenport (Raymond Huntley, (Bill Parsons (Hugh Burden) and Geoffrey Stainer (Jimmy Hanley) and we see them as they struggle to adjust to military life under sergeant Ned Fletcher (William Hartnell) and Lt. Jim Perry (David Niven).

Once the troopers are whipped into shape they are slated to sail to French North Africa to participate in Operation Torch, the invasion of Vichy France's colonies Algeria and Tunisia.

So they have to say goodbye to family and friends but a group of wives form a support group, Mrs. Perry (Penelope Dudley-Ward), Mrs. Brewer (Esma Cannon), Mrs. Hilda Parsons (Eileen Erskine) and Mrs. Fletcher (Grace Arnold) and track the progress of their loved ones from the moment they embarked, especially the sinking of the troop ship by a German U-boat, with half the battalion lost in the Mediterranean Sea.

As a result the men miss the invasion and from then on seem to be one step behind the action all the way and it's not until the battle of El Alamein starts to turn against the British Eight Arm that Perry's men are immediately sent to the front lines to stop the German Afrika Corps advance.

Apart from the principles there is also a strong supporting cast, Reginald Tate, Leo Genn, Renée Asherson, Tessie O'Shea, A.E. Matthews, Jack Watling and Peter Ustinov is excellent as Rispoli the Cafe Owner.

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – THE EAGLE HAS LANDED (1976)

 

“The Eagle Has Landed” is a World War II drama, screenplay by Tom Mankiewicz based on the novel by Jack Higgins and Directed by John Sturges.

The movie of Higgins' bestselling debut book, in my opinion by far the best book he wrote, unfolds at the height of World War II when a German plot to kidnap Sir Winston Churchill in 1943 is proposed, at a time when the war is entering its final stages and Germany is teetering on the brink of defeat.

So an increasingly unhinged Hitler, orders a mission to have British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill kidnapped and brought to Germany.

The plan seems ludicrous in the extreme, but Himmler (Donald Pleasence) tasks Admiral Canaris (Anthony Quayle) and Colonel Radl (Robert Duvall) to put a plan together just to keep Himler happy, but a message sent from a German spy in the Norfolk countryside Joanna Grey (Jean Marsh) makes Radl believe that such a mission might just succeed.

So Oberst Kurt Steiner (Michael Caine) and his rapidly dwindling command land in East Anglia posing as Polish Soldiers on manoeuvres.  

They are aided by Irish nationalist Liam Devlin (Donald Sutherland) though not a Nazi sympathiser assists the Germans after being offered money for the cause, but he is distracted by a local young girl Molly (Jenny Agutter) who is fixated on him, and might derail the whole enterprise before the goal is achieved.

 

It’s a very enjoyable movie with a good story, strong characters and an able supporting cast, including Sven-Bertil Taube as Steiner’s second in command Captain von Neustadt, John Standing as Father Verecker, Judy Geeson as his sister Pamela, Treat Williams as Captain Clark and Larry Hagman as Colonel Pitts.

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – D-DAY THE SIXTH OF JUNE (1956)

 

D-Day the Sixth of June, Directed by Henry Koster, tells the tale of a love triangle involving a British Officer, Lt Colonel John Wynter (Richard Todd), American Captain Brad Parker (Robert Taylor) and Red Cross Nurse Valerie Russell (Dana Wynter).

The story unfolds aboard an allied transport on the eve of D-Day shown in flashback, as the two officers reminisce about their individual relationships with the beauteous English Rose.

But who will the nurse choose? A married American Staff Officer or the gung ho British Lt Colonel.

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – THE DAWN PATROL (1938)

 

“Dawn Patrol” is a war drama based on the story by John Monk Saunders and Directed by Edmund Goulding.

In 1915 in France, Major Brand (Basil Rathbone) has the burden of command of the 39th Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps sending pilots to almost certain death every day.

The young airmen go up daily in bullet-riddled “crates” and the casualty rate is appalling, but Brand can't make the high command at headquarters see reason, and if that was not enough insubordinate air ace Captain Courtney (Errol Flynn) and his sidekick Scott (David Niven) are constant thorns in Brand's side.

The film is a very gritty and accurate look at life, and death, in a Royal Flying Corps fighter squadron and has a strong supporting cast including, Donald Crisp, Melville Cooper, Barry Fitzgerald, Carl Esmond, Peter Willes and Morton Lowry.