The Years Between is directed by Compton Bennett, has a screenplay by Muriel and Sydney Box, is based on the play by Daphne Du Maurier and stars Michael Redgrave, Valerie Hobson, Flora Robson and James McKechnie.Michael Wentworth(Michael Redgrave)is a respected member of parliament who is reported killed during the Second World War. His widow Diana (Valerie Hobson)is devastated when the news reaches her. She is persuaded to stand for her husbands seat and take up his job, after much apprehension she agrees and becomes a very popular MP. Diana also finds she loves the freedom she now has in her life, she can make her own decisions and do what she wants to instead of what her husband wants her to do.After several years go by Diana falls in love with the dull but dependable Richard Llewellyn(James McKechnie). The pair are due to be married when news arrives that a mistake had been made and Michael wasn't killed after all, he spent the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp and when the camp was liberated he and the other soldiers were rescued and are returning home. Diana has very mixed emotions about his return, especially when she discovers he expects everything at home to be exactly how he left it.The film does a good job of showing the reality of life for returning soldiers and British women after the war. The men expected to be able to go back to their jobs and have their wives stay at home with them as had been the case before. The women however loved their new found independence by having done the mens jobs during the war, many women didn't want to go back to being a housewife and not being allowed to have a career and a life of their own choosing, many wanted to keep the jobs they were doing as they could do them just as well as the men could.Life had changed forever and both men and women would have to come to some sort of understanding in order to try and make life happy again for everyone. Both Redgrave and Hobson do a good job of portraying the opposite opinions and conflicting emotions that both returning soldiers and the women experienced.The film is good but it could have and should have showed just how tough this return was in more detail. You get a sense of it but it would have been nice to have seen Michael and Diana discuss their situation and opposing viewpoints in more detail. Also the happy ending didn't ring quite true to me and I doubt it would have been arrived at so quickly or seemingly easily in real life.This is another one of Redgrave's rarer films that should be better known. The film is well worth a watch and features some strong performances. Redgrave is excellent as the once strong man broken by his war experiences (when we first see him upon his return he looks rough and fragile), Hobson portrays the emotionally conflicted wife so well and Flora Robson is good as always as the Wentworth's loyal housekeeper who suffered a personal loss in World War One and is very upset about there being another war.

Subtle drama about war and marriage. Valerie Hobson plays uppercrust wife who gets a telegram during WW II stating her husband (Michael Redgrave) has been killed. To get her out of her deep depression, friends persuade her to take her husband's seat in Parliament. She is surprised to learn she liked it. The years go by.She's about to married a local dullard when she gets another telegram. Redgrave is alive after all, and has been a prisoner of war for all these years. When he returns, things are very unsettling. He expects everything to be the way it was, but much has changed, especially the wife.He expects her to give up her seat, but she refuses. As the postman (Edward Rigby) keeps telling everyone, nothing will be the same after the war. He's right. Hobson finds she's indifferent to Redgrave after all these years. He keeps complaining about all the changes.The kicker is what he really did during the war, what he couldn't tell anyone, even his wife.Redgrave and Hobson are terrific in their roles, even if they are written rather narrowly. Flora Robson is also solid as the "nanny" who seems to have more common sense than either the husband or the wife. Others include James McKechnie as the dullard, Felix Aylmer as a politician, Dulcie Gray as Judy, Esma Cannon as the cook, and Wylie Watson as Venning.Worth a look.

The Years Between has dated badly. Valerie Hobson and Michael Redgrave are wonderful actors - although Valerie Hobson is always so correct, so well-spoken, so perfect (ideal for Estella in Great Expectations, but not for the character in this contrived set-up). But the film is unconvincing. The play was probably worse - though I suspect the performance and interpretation were not exactly what Daphne Du Maurier originally wanted - she audaciously tried to present a story of how love changes, how people change, how the past cannot be revived, especially after the trauma of war (and her own experience had taught her that). But her actors and directors were unable to transfer her real intentions to the screen. The story is actually quite believable. People were singled out for special duties which could involve faked death and they did return. Meanwhile, their nearest and dearest could well fall in love again and re-marry, not knowing the truth. But this time the plot is too implausible - it would have been simpler had the heroine not taken her supposed dead husband's place in the House of Commons. She could have simply made her own career in the Forces or Civil Service - and not wanted to forsake it when hubby returns and wants a return to domesticity. Celia Johnson could have played the part with more aplomb and more feeling - torn between returned husband and new lover (but that's just my preference).But, despite disappointment, I'm glad I got the opportunity to see this film - caught by chance on Movies4Men, I'm surprised it hasn't been shown on Film 4 or TCM - it's a likely candidate. And Michael Redgrave and Valerie Hobson are always worth watching. Flora Robson, as usual, overplayed the melodrama. The denouement with wife returning to husband was appropriate for the period (1946 - no one wanted adultery etc. to be condoned at this time) but we could have done without Valerie Hobson running madly across the lawns to reach her husband and making out she truly wanted to be reunited. Dramatic licence fitting the post-war propaganda sheet here I think - in retrospect she would have been better off staying with her lover - who seemed to be a better dad to son Robin anyway.Never mind, an interesting little film despite all its flaws.

The problem about this film is that it admits that the end of the war caused a great deal of marital disharmony and divorces but does not go the whole hog.Unfortunately it does not inhabit the world of the folk who would be watching this in their local Odeons.It had to be about a resistance organiser who is also an MP and his wife who has taken over his seat on the presumption of his death.Then he(Michael Redgrave)turns up having been held in captivity and wants to assume that everything should be as it was before the war.His wife initially does not.At this point the film is i believe reasonably accurate.However given the censorship of the times the most likely outcome is ignored.Whislt there are moments of interest i have to say that notwithstanding the understated performances of all concerned this is far too earnest and dull.