86% (2) This Happy Breed 115 min, Not Rated, [Comedy, Drama] [David Lean] [12 Apr 1947]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 73%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 win.
Actors: Alison Leggatt, Amy Veness, Celia Johnson, Robert Newton
Writer: David Lean (adapted for the screen by), Ronald Neame (adapted for the screen by), Anthony Havelock-Allan (adapted for the screen by)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: UK
Plot: Noel Coward's attempt to show how the ordinary people lived between the wars. Just after WWI the Gibbons family moves to a nice house in the suburbs. An ordinary sort of life is led by the family through the years with average number of triumphs and disasters until the outbreak of WWII.
Rotten Tomatoes: With This Happy Breed, playwright Noel Coward hoped to glorify the British working class in the same manner that he'd celebrated the "higher orders" in Cavalcade. The film begins just after World War I. Middle-class Londoner Robert Newton hopes to improve his family's lot by moving them into a comparatively posh house in the suburbs. The house is large enough for each family member to claim a corner or room as his or her own, allowing Coward to spotlight the characters' highly individual strengths, shortcomings and emotions. Twenty years go by, filled with the sorts of triumphs and tragedies with which British audiences of the 1940s could readily identify. Finally, left alone after their children and relatives have moved on, Newton and his wife (Celia Johnson) leave the house behind for a smaller, more practical apartment. This was the second of four collaborations between author Noel Coward and director David Lean. While Coward can't completely disguise his patronizing attitude towards "regular folks," Lean is successful in conveying the essential warmth, humanity and value of the film's characters.
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85% (2) Brief Encounter 86 min, Not Rated, [Drama, Romance] [David Lean] [24 Aug 1946]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 81%, Rotten Tomatoes: 90%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 3 wins.
Actors: Celia Johnson, Joyce Carey, Stanley Holloway, Trevor Howard
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: UK
Plot: At a café on a railway station, housewife Laura Jesson meets doctor Alec Harvey. Although they are both already married, they gradually fall in love with each other. They continue to meet every Thursday in the small café, although they know that their love is impossible.
Rotten Tomatoes: On a cafe at a railway station, housewife Laura Jesson meets Dr. Alec Harvey. Although they are already married, they gradually fall in love with each other. They continue to meet every Thursday on the small cafe, although they know that their love is impossible
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83% (2) In Which We Serve 115 min, Not Rated, [Drama, War] [Noël Coward, David Lean] [23 Dec 1942]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 73%, Rotten Tomatoes: 94%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 7 wins & 1 nomination.
Actors: Bernard Miles, Celia Johnson, John Mills, Noël Coward
Writer: Noël Coward (by)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: UK
Plot: This is the story of a British Naval ship, HMS Torrin, from its construction to its sinking in the Mediterranean during action in World War II. The ship's first and only commanding officer is the experienced Captain E.V. Kinross who trains his men not only to be loyal to him but to the country and most importantly, to themselves. They face challenges at sea and also at home. They lose some of their shipmates in action and some of their loved ones in the devastation that is the blitz. Throughout it all, the men of the Torrin serve valiantly and heroically.
Rotten Tomatoes: Few morale-boosting wartime films have retained their power and entertainment value as emphatically as Noël Coward's In Which We Serve. To witness Coward's sober, no-nonsense direction (in collaboration with his co-director/editor, David Lean) and to watch his straightforward portrayal of navy captain Kinross, one would never suspect that he'd built his theatrical reputation upon sophisticated drawing-room comedies and brittle, witty song lyrics. The real star of In Which We Serve is the British destroyer Torrin. Torpedoed in battle, the Torrin miraculously survives, and is brought back to English shores to be repaired. The paint is barely dry and the nuts and bolts barely in place before the Torrin is pressed into duty during the Dunkirk evacuation. The noble vessel is finally sunk after being dive-bombed in Crete, but many of the crew members survive. As they cling to the wreckage awaiting rescue, Coward and his men flash back to their homes and loved ones, and, in so doing, recall anew just why they're fighting and for whom they're fighting. Next to Coward, the single most important of the film's characters is Shorty Blake, played by John Mills. (Trivia note: Mills' infant daughter Juliet Mills appears as Shorty's baby.) Even so, the emphasis in the film is on teamwork; here as elsewhere, there can be no stars in wartime. For many years, the only prints available to television were from the bowdlerized American version, which crudely cut out all "hells" and "damns." Fortunately, this eviscerated American release has since been shelved in favor of the full, glorious 115-minute version.
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78% (1) The Holly and the Ivy 80 min, Approved, [Drama] [George More O'Ferrall] [04 Feb 1954]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 78%, External Reviews
Actors: Celia Johnson, Denholm Elliott, Margaret Leighton, Ralph Richardson
Writer: Anatole de Grunwald (screenplay)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: UK
Plot: A heartwarming tale of an English minister and his family reunited at Christmas time. Their story includes a remembrance of their World War II trials.
Rotten Tomatoes: Faithfully adapted from a popular holiday play by Wynyard Browne, this moving British drama centers on a recently widowed, aging country vicar who hosts a family Christmas and learns a valuable lesson about keeping his own homefires alight before spending too much time tending the fires of others. Those coming for the holiday include his sister, his late wife's sister, and her cousin. The vicar's free-spirited youngest daughter and his son, a furloughed soldier, also show up. The preacher's eldest daughter lives with him and together they welcome their guests. The vicar is a good man and a caring fellow who spends considerable time caring for and counseling his parishioners, perhaps too much time, for he does not recognize the troubles of his own clan. His devoted oldest daughter quietly deals with a terrible dilemma. She is about to marry an engineer who has just found a long-term job overseas. She wants desperately to be with him, but will not leave her beloved father who seems to need her so much. Her little sister also has trouble. While in the city she fell in love with a soldier. He impregnated her, returned to the war, and was killed. Later the child died and she has become an alcoholic, something she eventually tells her brother and sister. Meanwhile the young people's aunts, learning of the situation, ask the youngest to return home to care for her father so the eldest can marry. Unfortunately, the young woman refuses and heads off to get drunk with her brother. When the vicar learns about his daughter's troubles, he and she have an emotional reconciliation. He then moves on to make peace with the rest of his family.
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71% (1) The Captain's Paradise 94 min, [Comedy, Romance] [Anthony Kimmins] [28 Sep 1953]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 71%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 1 nomination.
Actors: Alec Guinness, Celia Johnson, Charles Goldner, Peter Bull, Yvonne De Carlo
Writer: Alec Coppel (story), Alec Coppel, Nicholas Phipps
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: UK
Plot: Mediterranean ferryboat captain Henry St James has things well organized - a loving and very English wife Maud in Gibraltar, and the loving if rather more hot-blooded Mistress, Nita in Tangiers. A perfect life. As long as neither woman decides to follow him to the other port.
Rotten Tomatoes: In this bright British comedy, we meet Capt. Henry St. James (Alec Guinness) as he stands before a firing squad and then learn of the curious chain of events that brought him to his fate. Henry is a ship's captain ferrying a steamer between Gibraltar and North Africa on a regular basis, and he's taken the notion of "a girl in every port" to a whole new level; he has a wife on each side of the water. In Gibraltar, there's Maude (Celia Johnson), an even-tempered housewife who keeps the house tidy and has dinner ready when Henry likes it. In North Africa, mate number two is Nita (Yvonne DeCarlo), who is a sultry fun seeker who likes to hit the nightspots and dance 'till dawn. Between the two of them, Henry would seem to have the best of both worlds; Chief Officer Ricco (Charles Goldner) openly envies Henry's remarkable romantic situation. But things start to go sour when Maude suddenly decides she's a stick in the mud and wants to start living it up, while Nita becomes a homebody and begins learning to cook; Henry is none too happy about either development, and before long he finds he has no spouse on either shore. The Captain's Paradise was trimmed from 93 to 84 minutes for its initial United States release. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
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61% (1) The Astonished Heart 85 min, APPROVED, [Drama, Romance] [Antony Darnborough, Terence Fisher] [01 Mar 1950]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 61%, External Reviews
Actors: Celia Johnson, Joyce Carey, Margaret Leighton, Noël Coward
Writer: Noël Coward (by), Noël Coward (screenplay)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: UK
Plot: The film begins with a scene in which Barbara rings Leonora to tell her that something has happened to Chris. At this point, we don't know who Chris is or what has happened, only that he has lost conciousness. The film then flashes back a year, to when the old friends Barbara and Leonora meet again after having lost contact for many years. Time has not strained their relationship it seems, and Barbara invites Leonora to her house a few days later to meet her husband. Her husband Chris, a pompous, austere psychologist, gets off to a bad start with Leonora. The two despise each other until one night when Barbara has to leave town to look after her mother. Because of this, she is unable to go to the play she had arranged to go with Leonora to. Chris reluctantly decides to go in place of Barbara, and the two hit it off and begin a relationship.
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