Millions Like Us [1943]

Product Information

A further propaganda message included in the film was to represent the different regions and classes of the British people all working together for the common good of Britain, and therefore included representatives of all nations and all classes rather than the upper middle classes which usually represented the British people in films of the era. Characters included Gwen from Wales, Fred from Glasgow, a Welsh male voice choir, a massed dance to the tune of Loch Lomond. The north of England was represented by Eric Portman playing Charlie Forbes and Terry Randall in her role of Annie Earnshaw – and as northerners they were ‘obviously’ working class and had a degree of comedy about them. Patricia Roc was cast as a working class girl, but being the star of the film came across as more middle class. The upper middle class were represented by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as the army officers Charters and Caldicott.

The acting, especially in the home sequences, is low-key in the same manner as Lean's 'This Happy Breed'. A far cry from the stagey histrionics of pre-war British cinema, it anticipates the naturalism of TV drama. There are no big speeches or characters, just commonplace folk muddling through. The interpolation of Naunton and Wayne, whom L&G had made a crosstalk team in 'The Lady Vanishes', is the only concession to a 1930s conception of entertainment. McFarlane, Brian (1997). An autobiography of British cinema: as told by the filmmakers and actors who made it. p.225. ISBN 9780413705204. Here is the writer/director pairing of Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder at its best. Their dialogue is wonderfully natural, and they allow their expert cast to play for authenticity, with only as much commotion and comedy as will keep us involved in their characters. A film about and for women in the workplace may sound like a step forward from the usual patriarchal portrayal of the female sex. Yet, at its heart this is a deeply conservative film. Ultimately Celia finds fulfillment with and through a man and whilst the companionship of women is important, all the female characters are searching for a husband. A nearby RAF bomber station sends some of its men to a staff dance at the factory, during which Celia meets and falls in love with an equally shy young Scottish flight sergeant Fred Blake. Their relationship encounters a crisis when Fred refuses to tell Celia when he is sent out on his first mission, but soon afterwards they meet and make up, with Fred asking Celia to marry him. After the wedding they spend their honeymoon at the same south coast resort as the Crowsons went to in 1939, finding it much changed with minefields and barbed wire defending against the expected German invasion.

The Next of Kin (1942)

I rated this film 7/10 and in my opinion is Patricia Roc's best film as Celia Crowson.She gives a sensitive performance of an every day girl caught up in WWII who must do her bit for the war effort.While waiting for her assessment interview she sees a poster and fantasises being accepted into the WRAF/Wrens/Womens army corps/Land Girls or nursing assisting good looking officers, only to be asked to prosaically help out in a factory as "Mr Bevan needs a million women" to make the weapons, aeroplanes and assorted war material. 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.

Bigger characters provide a light in which to notice how unassuming Celia and Fred matter to us. Jennifer (Anne Crawford) and Charlie (Eric Portman) play out a side-story, asking what role this war will have in breaking down the classes as the Great War had before it and, with strange prescience, it is the aspiring, salt-of-the-earth Charlie who will not commit to girl-about-town Jenny, foreshadowing the real-world Labour landslide two years later when the have-nots established themselves. While I could mention of any of the supporting players, I shall finish with the low-key comedy of Celia's father Jim (Moore Marriott) and the forever train-travelling double-act of Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, keeping austere Britain from being sombre. Yesterday evening Turner Classic Movies previewed "Millions Like Us," so it was the first time I saw the film. It may not be the best British wartime movie, but it is truly a gem in its own way. I was a child during the war, growing up in a small town in the Midwest of the U.S. Although I didn't have knowledge of what Britain was going through, I heard about it and knew how Americans reacted once we were in the war. The family interactions in "Millions Like Us" were totally believable...the family getting ready to go on holiday in the summer of 1939 and later the scene in the kitchen when Celia announces she has been called up. Occasionally, there are flashes of mild interest. Eric Portman and Anne Crawford have a couple of tense sequences together and manage to perk the proceedings somewhat. 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. Much of the film is set in an aeroplane factory, where daydreaming Celia ( Patricia Roc) works alongside down-to-earth Gwen ( Megs Jenkins) and snobbish Jennifer ( Anne Crawford), who arrives dressed to the nines and who feels that her new job is beneath her. But their no-nonsense boss Charlie Forbes ( Eric Portman) is adamant that petty class distinctions are no longer relevant during wartime - something the refugee families crowding into trains' first-class compartments would readily agree with.I had fairly high hopes for the film "Millions Like Us" as it sounded an interesting idea on paper. Sadly, the final results didn't live up to my expectations. 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 Gainsborough Studios. Screenwriters Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat decided to share direction, both recording their debuts in that capacity. They afterwards felt that having two directors had often confused the actors. They continued to collaborate on scriptwriting and production but directed individually. [2] [3] [4] 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. On the American home-front, my mother freshly graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in Rochester, worked in the Bausch&Lomb factory, making all kinds of optical lenses for war production as that was all Bausch&Lomb was doing in 1943 when this film was made. Before that she worked after school there part time. Still it was a voluntary thing because she had a brother in the service. It was hardly the regimented lives you see these women leading, moved to far away location with new factories springing up in the country to avoid bombing. There's a reference in the film to Mr. Bevin's manpower needs filled by women and they are referring to Ernest Bevin, trade union leader, Labor MP, and in charge in the wartime Coalition Cabinet of such mobilization. From the Four Corners in 1941 - a 15 minute non-combat film celebrating the contributions made by Commonwealth Allies.