Film: "In Which We Serve" (1942).
Stay dry-eyed if you dare as Noel Coward delivers his inspiring speech from
the quarterdeck of HMS Torrin, a British destroyer finally sunk by the
Germans off Crete after a valiant war. In reality, the script was based on the
experiences of Lord Mountbatten, whose ship HMS Kelly was sunk under
him. It's become fashionable to despise such sentiments as a mixture of chauvinism
and middle-class patronage - the officer class paying lip-service to the ratings
who did the real work and paid the price. Don't you believe it. Though in the
context it was certainly propaganda, it's about such unfashionable sentiments
as idealism and "good, brave causes" that were worth fighting and dying for.
Coward's film, in which Bernard Miles, John Mills and Richard Attenborough are
prominent in the supporting cast, with Celia Johnson in her first screen role
as Coward's wife, won a special Oscar for his "outstanding production
achievement". He soon recognised the contribution of his editor, David Lean, and
insisted that he share the direction credit. Made in wartime, it's rightly about
sharing responsibility.
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