This is, in most ways, a clichéd repeat of 1930s movies about the snobbish English aristocracy and the almost Stepin-Fetchit obsequiousness of the English peasantry. Think *Mrs. Miniver* from two years before, or *Rebecca* from four years before. Irene Dunne gives yet another wonderful, nuanced performance, and Alan Marshal, handsome but not a great actor, is dispensed with fairly early in the movie, so we can enjoy Gladys Cooper and the other character roles instead.But then, at the end, we several times are told that "God will never forgive us if we break faith with our dead again," if we go to war yet again after World Wars I and II, with all their loss of life. It is a very strange note on which to end this movie, especially since, when it was released in June, 1944, we were just landing in Normandy and had no idea when World War II would end, and how.This is, in short, about as close to an anti-war movie as the Office of War Information could have countenanced during the war.As I said at the beginning, most of it is just Hollywood clichés about the English recycled. Nothing new.But the end, far from uplifting, is particularly somber.I recommend it for Dunne's fine performance, and for the hint at isolationism that the end seems to suggest.

Keep the home fires burning. Emotional and reflective. We need to look back every fifty years or so to look for values. There are a lot of contemporary connections. Look for Roddy McDowell and Elizabeth Taylor. A good picture of the UK in the first half of the last century, even if only through the the eyes of the early forties. Although in large part a sentimental movie, somewhat in the mode of a soap opera, it deals with the larger issues of life on the home-front. It speaks to the twenty-first century where those of us with money have few participating in the military either personally or financially. Irene Dunne carries the action and supports the sentimentality without undue exaggeration. Some really spectacular patriotic sentiment. Look for the bit about the chess set. Compare Susan Dunn's (Irene Dunne's)father-in-law with the Major in Keeping Up Appearances. Frank Morgan offers a nice contrast to the English scene; one would like to visit Toliver, Rhode Island, which would have existed if it could.

I only had one thing to add to the other reviews. But first I'll note that this is one of those "Golden Age" movies where every member of the cast is a pro. What a great scene between C. Aubrey Smith and Frank Morgan, both extolling the virtues of their own countries to the other's detriment (England v. USA). And the star of the movie is the great, under-rated Irene Dunne.But, if for no other reason, you should see this movie just to hear our (America's) national anthem, played in a context that will absolutely make you cry. It rivals the "Marseillaise" performance in "Casablanca" for bringing a lump to your throat -- only this time, it is not a gesture of defiance, but of gratitude.

Irene Dunne stars as the American woman who is romanced by an Englishman (Alan Marshall), then loses him to the first World War and who decides to raise her son (Roddy McDowell) in England, only to have him go to war once he grows up (as Peter Lawford) and die in battle. A little too weepy at times, the movie tries to convey its message of the dangers of Germany in the scene where the two teenage boys proclaim an almost fervent admiration for their own country and that they most definitely have not lost the war (and their pride) yet.A salute to the British and American soldiers who fought World War II, THE WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER features a massive cast of established actors and rising stars: Gladys Cooper, Van Johnson, Dame May Witty, an uncredited June Lockhart, Peter Lawford, and Elizabeth Taylor. A good movie that only was Oscar nominated in technical categories that has Irene Dunne aptly playing her role as if Greer Garson would have; it's a shame that she never received a recognition for her body of work and here her work makes watching the movie worth the effort even if it goes on for a little too much.