For me, the highlight of this film is the opening scene where British socialite tells off her snooty mother (Gladys Cooper) for only thinking of how the family will be inconvenienced during wartime and how grateful she should be that there are men and women going off to serve so freedom can remain. Later on, she has a teary scene where she goes on about her desires to see the war won and her fears over what would happen otherwise. For recent Oscar winner Fontaine, it's not going to get her a second one, but for movie viewers, those two speeches were just what they needed to hear.
I found this one a bit of a disappointment, not a bad movie but just weak on plot and more of a slice of life drama as to what was happening during the war. No "Mrs. Miniver" here, but a slight story involving a romance with AWOL soldier Tyrone Power whom she meets during a blackout and her efforts to help him. Most of the film is spent dealing with various situations, like crowded restaurants, rude servers (Sara Allgood), sudden invasions and eventually Power being injured.
Outside of the two leads, pretty much everybody only has one scene although Thomas Mitchell and Nigel Bruce have multiple. The script for the kind of film it is is decent, but the film flows strangely from situation to situation so it's easy to get lost being distracted trying to decipher what the film is really all about and trying to say outside of "We must fight to ensure that victory is ours". Ultimately pretty generic and not quite a classic among the many patriotic war films made during the 1940's. The promise set by the opening scene and Fontaine's training are not matched by what follows.
I found this one a bit of a disappointment, not a bad movie but just weak on plot and more of a slice of life drama as to what was happening during the war. No "Mrs. Miniver" here, but a slight story involving a romance with AWOL soldier Tyrone Power whom she meets during a blackout and her efforts to help him. Most of the film is spent dealing with various situations, like crowded restaurants, rude servers (Sara Allgood), sudden invasions and eventually Power being injured.
Outside of the two leads, pretty much everybody only has one scene although Thomas Mitchell and Nigel Bruce have multiple. The script for the kind of film it is is decent, but the film flows strangely from situation to situation so it's easy to get lost being distracted trying to decipher what the film is really all about and trying to say outside of "We must fight to ensure that victory is ours". Ultimately pretty generic and not quite a classic among the many patriotic war films made during the 1940's. The promise set by the opening scene and Fontaine's training are not matched by what follows.