In Which We Serve

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Movie
Original title In Which We Serve
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
Publishing year 1942
length 114 minutes
Rod
Director Noël Coward
David Lean
script Noël Coward
production Noël Coward
Anthony Havelock-Allan
Herbert Smith
music Noël Coward
Clifton Parker
camera Ronald Neame
Guy Green
cut Thelma Connell
occupation

In Which We Serve is a 1942 British film directed by Noël Coward . Coward wrote the script for the film, co-directed and produced with David Lean . He also played one of the main roles and wrote a musical number for the film. In 1943 Coward was awarded an honorary Oscar for the production of the film. Which We Serve received two other Academy Award nominations .

The film deals with the airborne battle of Crete and shows the effects of an attack by the German Wehrmacht on a Royal Navy ship .

action

The film begins with the words: "This is the story of a ship ...", plus pictures of the construction of the HMS Torrin in a British shipyard. On board the HMS Torrin, the crew was involved in a battle during the airborne battle for Crete in 1941. German fighter planes fire at the ship as dusk falls. When the Torrin is hit, the crew must evacuate before it capsizes . As the planes continue to bombard the survivors as they float helplessly in the water, their thoughts go back to a better time and to their families. Sailor Shorty Blake remembers courting his wife Freda, and Petty Officer Walter Hardy thinks of his brave wife Katherine. Captain Edward Kinross' thoughts also go back to the summer of 1939 and to his family, especially his wife Alix, who HMS Torrin had always referred to as its rival.

After the Torrin sank, the men floating on a raft are still being targeted by machine guns from a German plane , and there are more dead and wounded. Shortly afterwards, a British destroyer approaches and begins rescue operations. Capt. Kinross with the survivors, picks up the names of the dying and gives them comfort. The wounded are taken to Alexandria . As far as possible, the relatives are informed in telegrams about the fate of their husbands, sons or fathers. Only when the last of his men disembarked did Capt. Kinross went silent and emotionally burned out.

Bigger and stronger ships will march out to avenge the attack on the Torrin, after all Great Britain is a state with proud, tireless people , says the epilogue to the film. Capt. Kinross is given command of a battleship .

Production and Background

Filming began on February 5, 1942. The film was filmed in Denham Studios near Buckinghamshire and in the cliffs of the Chiltern Hills, the Dunstable Downs in Bedfordshire . Recordings were also made at the Plymouth Naval Shipyard in Plymouth and the Naval Station on the Isle of Portland , as well as at Smeaton's Tower on the coast at Plymouth Hoe . The destroyer HMAS Nepal represented the HMS Torrin. The film premiered on September 17, 1942 in the United Kingdom and on October 16, 1942 in the USA .

The story of the film is based in part on an actual disaster that happened in the Royal Navy . In September 1939, the HMS Courageous was hit by a German submarine with two torpedoes and sank within 17 minutes. There were 741 survivors, but also 518 dead. The rescued were later brought to the destroyer HMS Kelly . In May 1940, the destroyer HMS Bulldog was involved in a maneuver against German mine-layers in the central North Sea. The Kelly , of which Lord Louis Mountbatten was in command, was torpedoed by a German speedboat. The Bulldog dragged them back to Newcastle. The HMS Kelly was bombed by German dive fighters on May 23, 1941 during the evacuation of Crete and sank as a result.

Coward tells in a semi-documentary style and always works with flashbacks. On display are German torpedoes that are causing the British destroyer HMS Torrin to sink and survivors fighting for an inflatable lifeboat. The scenes that take place in the families are typically British, while the problems of the various couples could have been the same in all walks of life and all over the world, because everywhere there are people who do not hesitate to put their personal happiness behind their duty .

According to reports at the time, Coward should have left most of the directing to Lean, as he should have found this work rather tiring. His co-director, David Lean, was a well-respected film editor in the British film industry at the time . This work was his directorial debut. Coward and Lean worked together in three more Coward plays immediately after this film. In addition to the many scenes that deal with domestic life and family relationships, there were also exciting scenes around and on the Torrin, which showed the crew engaged in heavy fighting with the enemy. These scenes were partly put together from elaborate studio recordings and actual war recordings.

A number of leading British actors appeared in the film; Richard Attenborough made a remarkable debut here. The film contains a few scenes that are memorable. It was also her debut in the arms of her father for Juliet Mills, the one-year-old daughter of John Mills, as she also played his film daughter.

Historical background

The Airborne Battle of Crete is a battle in World War II . It was the first major airborne operation in history. After Greece was captured during the Balkan campaign in 1941, Crete , which was defended by Allied troops, was conquered by the German Wehrmacht and remained occupied until 1945. After the British troops had withdrawn from mainland Greece, at Churchill's instructions, part of the British expeditionary force had been transported to Crete to reinforce defensive measures. Most of the British troops were transferred to Egypt .

Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1900–1979) was initially the commander of a destroyer flotilla during World War II. He was praised for his courageous and daring efforts. When he led a landing operation by the Western Allies in January 1942 , which went down in history under the name Operation Jubilee , it led to great losses and was generally regarded as a failure. From this one drew knowledge for Operation Overlord . From 1943 to 1946 Mountbatten was then Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces in Southeast Asia. There he distinguished himself in the Burma campaign . After the war he was honored several times in recognition of his achievements. He was the only British admiral of the Second World War to be awarded the Order of the Garter .

Music in the film

performed by Muir Mathieson and the London Symphony Orchestra
Music: John Bacchus Dykes , text: William Whiting
Composition by Johann Strauss
  • Run Rabbit Run
Music: Noel Gay, text: Ralph T. Butler
  • Beer barrel polka
Music: Jaromír Vejvoda , text: Wladimir A. Timm (English: Lew Brown )
  • Good King Wenceslas - Text: John M. Neale
  • Underneath the Arches - Music: Bud Flanagan and Reg Connelly
  • If You Were the Only Girl in the World
written by Nat Ayer and Clifford Gray

criticism

The film was largely positively assessed by the critics of the time and also by the audience. It was not received quite as well by the Admiralty, which changed the film title in its review to In Which We Sink .

Bosley Crowther of the New York Times believed that few films have shown the cruel reality of the current war as vividly and poignantly as in In Which We Serve. In this film, Mr. Coward shows the national strength of the British and their healthy pride.

For Variety , the film was a dark story, sincerely filmed and excellently portrayed. It was criticized, however, that the film dragged individual details too long.

Awards

In 1943 Noël Coward received the Oscar of Honor for his “Outstanding Production Achievement” in In Which We Serve . In 1944 Coward was nominated for an Oscar for the film in the categories of "Best Picture" and "Best Original Screenplay" . The Oscar for “Best Picture” went to Jack L. Warner and the classic film Casablanca , and the “Best Original Screenplay” went to Norman Krasna for the comedy The Pilot and the Princess .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Philip Hoare: Noël Coward: A Biography , New York, 1995, Verlag Simon & Schuster ISBN 0-684-80937-0
  2. In Which We Serve (1942) at IMDb. Retrieved January 28, 2014.
  3. a b c d In Which We Serve (1942) Articles bei TCM - Turner Classic Movies (English)
  4. Bosley Crowther: In Which We Serve (1942) In: The New York Times, December 24, 1942 (English). Retrieved January 28, 2014.
  5. In Which We Serve (1942). Review In: Variety, December 31, 1942. Retrieved January 28, 2014.