In Which We Serve

In case you've been getting tired of John Ford reviews, I give you a refreshing change of pace with... David Lean. (You weren't expecting Pier Paolo Pasolini, I hope?)

In Which We Serve (1942) was playwright-actor Noel Coward's tribute to the men and women serving Britain during World War II - specifically, in this instance, the Royal Navy. Coward produced, wrote, directed, composed the music for, and starred in the film, but he found solo direction rather a chore, and turned to skilled editor David Lean for help, drafting other talent - including the blokes in our header, Anthony Havelock-Allan and Ronald Neame - for further assistance. Thus, cinema history (and a Groggy obsession) was made.

In Which We Serve is a well-made war time flag-waver that's inevitably dated in spots, but the good (and occasionally great) easily outweighs the bad. Its heavy-handed patriotism might be grating to some modern viewers, but on the whole it holds up as a piece of entertainment and a fine film. The film boasts solid co-direction by Lean and Coward, a great cast of up-and-coming British talent, and a story that successfully balances wartime heroics with home-front melodrama.

The HMS Torrin, a Royal Navy destroyer, is sunk off the coast of Crete in 1941. The survivors of the crew, clinging to a life raft, reminisce about their history with the ship. Captain E.V. Kinross (Noel Coward) is a straight-laced captain who becomes a father figure for the men, moulding them into a cohesive fighting unit. Other cast members include Alix (Celia Johnson), the Captain's long-suffering but devoted wife; Shorty Blake (John Mills), who falls for sailor's niece Frida (Kay Walsh); and Walter Hardy (Bernard Miles), who loses his wife (Joyce Carey) in an air raid.

For a war-time propaganda film, In Which We Serve has an admirable strain of realism about it, which makes it that much more compelling. On paper, it's nothing more than a typical piece of flag-waving melodrama, but Coward and Lean make a great deal out of the material, utilizing a then-novel flashback structure to move the story along and connect the two strands. The movie works as a fairly gritty war film, and the melodrama is tastefully handled; no mawkish, unearned sentimentality . It successfully shows the effects of war, from the day-to-day grind of sailors risking their lives as a matter of routine, to civilians anxiously waiting for war to end - and becoming helpless targets themselves. The emotion is understated in the stereotypically British way, yet comes across all the better for it.

It appears that Coward was responsible for most of the movie's quiet character scenes, while Lean directed the action scenes and location sequences; however much this may be true, the two mesh perfectly. The film's direction is finely crafted if not particularly striking, the actors well-handled and the action scenes well-edited and staged with aplomb. If the film isn't a master-class of direction, it's handled well-enough to support the material, and as we all know, Lean would go on to bigger and better things.

Noel Coward, casting himself against type, gives an admirably restrained serious turn. He's a bit stiff at times, but in other scenes (particularly his farewell to the crew) Coward provides marvellous pathos and subtlety. The rest of the cast is full to bursting with soon-to-be famous talent, many of them destined to become Lean regulars: John Mills and Kay Walsh would reteam as lovers in This Happy Breed; Celia Johnson, already in Brief Encounter mode, gives a beautiful monologue about the travails of a sailor's wife; Bernard Miles (Great Expectations) provides dignity, humor and quiet sadness; James Donald rehearses his doctor's role for Bridge on the River Kwai; and Joyce Carrey (Blithe Spirit) and John Box (Kwai) also put in appearances. A very young Richard Attenborough can be seen as a shell-shocked sailor.

In Which We Serve is a fine war film and an auspicious debut for David Lean. As Coward intended, it's a perfect tribute to the British military, and its mixture of realism and emotion allows it to hold up reasonably well.