Well I have a great deal of sympathy for the male lead that plays the returning war hero. I would have stayed fighting anyone than go back to such a dreary post-war Britain portrayed in this, difficult-to-understand-why-it-was-made, film. The film quality was poor when I reviewed this, sound deadened and the film's crispness all but gone from any original print. The story starts well enough but rather than the rise of a man forced back to humble beginnings and then making a success of things in the face of adversity, it is more the story of triumph of the well-heeled moneyed folk's stoicism that greets their daughter's downward spiral into domesticity by the film's lead - Roger - and his stubborn behaviour of wishing to be both husband and bread winner without the bank of mum and dad. The film's story from the time Roger is made redundant has nothing going for it. I struggle to understand why this film was made at all? There is no drama in it but domestic drudgery that saddens me to see seventy years later. It is depressing and boring, no twists or turns, no humour - albeit that Irene Handel and her paramour were presumably employed to provide this? No chance sweetheart.I assume that this must have had a very mixed reception on its release? The film is one of stereotyping, stuffed full of upper class understanding of the 'ever-so-humble' working class lack of – well – class. The cinema audience would not have been convinced that listening to the Welsh guards and a baritone enthralled the gentry and working classes to help each triumph over the face of adversity, now would they? If you want to be depressed by an unentertaining film then watch it - otherwise give it a very wide berth.
... View MoreThis is an interesting film in that it deals with the problems beset by many servicemen when they returned home after world war 2.The problem with this film is that there are too many musical interludes which rather water down the drama.Also the solutions here are far too pat.I would reckon that the majority of servicemen returning home did not have the alternatives offered to Don Stannard.There is the major problem that he has had 6 years taken out of his life and at 24 he has to start back where he was at the outbreak of war .I knew someone who never got over his wartime experiences and I could imagine that it must have made uncomfortable viewing for many of the people who watched this in the cinema when the film was released.
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