This is an excellent war film from Ealing which depicts true events.It succeeds despite the lack of acting skills on the part of Tommy Grinder.What is rather interesting about this film is the way it highlights the activities of enemy agents and the fifth column,lifesaving the more famous"Next Of Kin".With the exception of the boat captain nearly every Frenchman is depicted as in league with enemy,hardly very flattering but obviously reflecting a common held view at that time.Even the army officer turns out to be an enemy agent.Gordon Jackson is impressive in an early role and Constance Cummings is clearly cast with the American market in mind.
8 Reviews
A useful reminder of "Operation Ariel"
wrs1025 August 2012
It has been a decade or more since I last saw this film. In 1942 it must have been very close to British audience. Nowadays most people still are aware of the evacuation from Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo) but the evacuation from Normandy and other points along the coast (Operation Ariel) is far less well known even although nearly as many British troops were brought home by Ariel as by Dynamo. The film did not dwell too much on the grim conditions (the audience wanted a bit of escapism after all) but conveyed the notion that no-one knows when they will be called on to "do their bit" for victory and hopefully rise to the occasion.
By the time of the release of the film the Battle of Midway had been won, the Germans had 57 tanks in North Africa and Generals January and February had taken their toll of the Germans in the Eastern Front. Although the Battle of the Atlantic had yet to be won the audience had grounds for optimism. The film had to have been made before it was clear that the tide had turned so it was quite remarkable that it should have hit just the right note.
By the time of the release of the film the Battle of Midway had been won, the Germans had 57 tanks in North Africa and Generals January and February had taken their toll of the Germans in the Eastern Front. Although the Battle of the Atlantic had yet to be won the audience had grounds for optimism. The film had to have been made before it was clear that the tide had turned so it was quite remarkable that it should have hit just the right note.
Somewhere in France
richardchatten16 July 2023
Ealing Studio were finally hitting their stride as purveyors of wartime propaganda when they despatched Clifford Evans to France to do his bit for blighty.
Evans being Welsh, Gordon Jackson Scotch and Tommy Trinder being English meant that all the nationalities were covered (with the Irish conspicuous by their absence); while Constance Cummings played a bolshy neutral Yank (who actually uses the word 'Capitalist') to keep American audiences happy.
The French are initially portrayed as a bunch of indolent characters in berets who just shrug their shoulders (one of whom bears a suspicious resemblance to Pierre Laval) apart from Robert Morley who fleetingly appears as a Vichyite mayor in a bowler hat; but the tone darkens considerably when they encounter roads lined with refugees.
Evans being Welsh, Gordon Jackson Scotch and Tommy Trinder being English meant that all the nationalities were covered (with the Irish conspicuous by their absence); while Constance Cummings played a bolshy neutral Yank (who actually uses the word 'Capitalist') to keep American audiences happy.
The French are initially portrayed as a bunch of indolent characters in berets who just shrug their shoulders (one of whom bears a suspicious resemblance to Pierre Laval) apart from Robert Morley who fleetingly appears as a Vichyite mayor in a bowler hat; but the tone darkens considerably when they encounter roads lined with refugees.
What a winner! Give this WWII film all the stars it can get!
richard.fuller113 July 2001
As usual, totally unlike anything of WWII we see here in America. I watched this film to see Robert Morley, a fave when I was little, only to find he was in a bit, uninteresting role as a French mayor, but the rest of the movie was a wonderful surprise. Based on a true story, Clifford Evans is a factory foreman who journeys to France to retrieve three valuable machines which, if they fell into German hands, would give the Germans an advantage. While he sits in a diner at the train station, the village is evacuated, but he doesn't understand what is happening. He journeys on to the town where the machines are and meets secretary Constance Cummings, an American actress by birth but more popular on British stage, playing a neutral American who is destroying classified documents. She agrees to serve as his translator to get the machines to the coast and she will stop off at her sister's, who also was in France. They enlist the aid of two British soldiers, Tommy Trinder (four stars for him alone as the comedy relief) and Gordon Jackson who have a British army lorry to transport the machines. Our group then further picks up six war orphans, the nun whose care they were in 'is sleeping' after they are attacked by German planes firing upon the fleeing French refugees.
This movie never disappointed. It takes place even before Pearl Harbor, so our heroes are totally oblivious to much of the horrors of war to come. Their only purpose is to get the machines back to England however possible. Never beaming with patriotism or heroic virtue, I was halfway through it when I began to think some of our friends may not be alive by the end of the film. The only flaw, . . . the only FLAW, was the foreman's inability to know when to keep his mouth shut! He is shown at the beginning as a fast talker who gets through all the red tape to go to France and get the machines, but he says too much later on, not once but twice, failing to learn from the first time that he gave out too much information. I'm not the most observant person, but when he told the wrong person about the British army lorry, I knew he had said too much again. Still it was a delightful old film with no Hollywood feel or stars and focused on an incident as only persons this close as England could have known about it. At one moment, the foreman Fred Carrick (the real foreman who the movie is based on was named Melbourne Johns), tells a French sea captain "Please thank your people for us. We owe so much to them." The captain responds, "We shall owe everything to your country, monsieur. When France lives again." And this was when the war was still going strong. What a wonderful, powerful entertaining film.
This movie never disappointed. It takes place even before Pearl Harbor, so our heroes are totally oblivious to much of the horrors of war to come. Their only purpose is to get the machines back to England however possible. Never beaming with patriotism or heroic virtue, I was halfway through it when I began to think some of our friends may not be alive by the end of the film. The only flaw, . . . the only FLAW, was the foreman's inability to know when to keep his mouth shut! He is shown at the beginning as a fast talker who gets through all the red tape to go to France and get the machines, but he says too much later on, not once but twice, failing to learn from the first time that he gave out too much information. I'm not the most observant person, but when he told the wrong person about the British army lorry, I knew he had said too much again. Still it was a delightful old film with no Hollywood feel or stars and focused on an incident as only persons this close as England could have known about it. At one moment, the foreman Fred Carrick (the real foreman who the movie is based on was named Melbourne Johns), tells a French sea captain "Please thank your people for us. We owe so much to them." The captain responds, "We shall owe everything to your country, monsieur. When France lives again." And this was when the war was still going strong. What a wonderful, powerful entertaining film.
Script: Priestley. Music: Walton
ouzman-112 November 2019
If you are going to make a propaganda film then in this we have two of the greatest names of the British 20th century. The happy band of actors contribute to a remarkable film, designed to convey the role of civvies and British army retreating from occupied France.
Stirring stuff. It helpfully conveyed the loss of life for civilians and sacrifice made against the odds in a war weary Europe and especially Britain.
Loosely based on a true story of a hero sent to bring home machine gun making equipment behind enemy lines the film is a wonderful triumph.
Comedy, heroism, sacrifice and pathos. Well it was wartime Europe. Watch it and enjoy as a piece of remarkable theatre.
10/10.
Stirring stuff. It helpfully conveyed the loss of life for civilians and sacrifice made against the odds in a war weary Europe and especially Britain.
Loosely based on a true story of a hero sent to bring home machine gun making equipment behind enemy lines the film is a wonderful triumph.
Comedy, heroism, sacrifice and pathos. Well it was wartime Europe. Watch it and enjoy as a piece of remarkable theatre.
10/10.
A Journey Through War
Maliejandra30 May 2014
The Foreman Went to France was my favorite film screened at Cinevent 2012.
This is the story of a British worker who sees that the German army is invading France and that the British machines which make weapons for airplanes are in danger of being taken by the enemy. He takes it upon himself to go to France to take them home, and along the way meets a blonde, two soldiers, and a group of orphans. This movie takes us on a journey as the protagonist experiences the many aspects of war and it is never dull. It was nice to see the British point of view of the war which is much more realistic than the highly optimistic war movies from America.
This is the story of a British worker who sees that the German army is invading France and that the British machines which make weapons for airplanes are in danger of being taken by the enemy. He takes it upon himself to go to France to take them home, and along the way meets a blonde, two soldiers, and a group of orphans. This movie takes us on a journey as the protagonist experiences the many aspects of war and it is never dull. It was nice to see the British point of view of the war which is much more realistic than the highly optimistic war movies from America.
Uncertain Journey.
rmax30482310 October 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Clifford Evans is an industrial foreman sent to France in 1940 to retrieve three "special-purpose machines" before the invading Germans can get their hands on them. He has nothing but trouble getting the job done.
If you enjoyed Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes" you ought to enjoy this because it's a similar combination of serious themes -- adventure, mystery, intrigue, death -- overlain with a thick impasto of comedy.
Essentially it's a "journey" film. Evans commandeers a truck manned by two lost British soldiers -- Tommy Trinder and an impossibly young Gordon Jackson. In fact there are quite a few familiar figures in the cast, including Mervyn Johns, Francis L. Sullivan, and John Williams. All are in minor roles. Williams is a Fifth Columnist masquerading as a British officer, but it's hard to imagine him as anything other than a detective or some kind of investigator. There are nights when I lull myself to sleep trying to list his many investigators and policemen.
Anyway, the truck with its load of precious machines makes its way through the byways of a France that is rapidly being overrun by the German army. Evans and the soldiers pick up a pretty blond American girl. (There must always be an attractive young lady around.) Next in line, of course, is a nun with a dozen children. The first little kid they hoist aboard has to pee. Nothing but tribulations.
It's enlivened, if that's the word, by some of the wisecracks of the light-hearted and optimistic Tommy Trinder. "You know what Nelson said -- England expects. That's why they call it the Mother Country." And, "You can take a horse to water but a pencil must be lead." Actually, now that I mull that over a bit, it's pretty funny.
The frolic is interrupted by the nasty Nazis who bomb hospitals and strafe roads filled with refugees. The refugees wind up dead, too, though not lingered over. Little of the horror is lingered over. It's not that kind of movie, any more than "The Lady Vanishes" was.
You know, what's most surprising about the movie is not that it's pretty good, which it is, including its special effects, but that it was made at all.
After all, this was released in 1942, a bad year for the Allies. Britain in particular was suffering. The Yanks had just been swept up in the war and not yet effectively mobilized. Cities like London and Coventry were bombed in a way that New York and Baltimore never were. Rommel was doing fine in North Africa. England was being strangled by U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. Russia was reeling. And here, under the most stringent conditions, a jolly good movie is produced and released.
An admirable job, considering. Ealing wasn't the studio producing splendid comedies that it was to become, but it's impossible to complain about "The Foreman Went to France." It would be an enjoyable divertissement under any circumstances.
If you enjoyed Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes" you ought to enjoy this because it's a similar combination of serious themes -- adventure, mystery, intrigue, death -- overlain with a thick impasto of comedy.
Essentially it's a "journey" film. Evans commandeers a truck manned by two lost British soldiers -- Tommy Trinder and an impossibly young Gordon Jackson. In fact there are quite a few familiar figures in the cast, including Mervyn Johns, Francis L. Sullivan, and John Williams. All are in minor roles. Williams is a Fifth Columnist masquerading as a British officer, but it's hard to imagine him as anything other than a detective or some kind of investigator. There are nights when I lull myself to sleep trying to list his many investigators and policemen.
Anyway, the truck with its load of precious machines makes its way through the byways of a France that is rapidly being overrun by the German army. Evans and the soldiers pick up a pretty blond American girl. (There must always be an attractive young lady around.) Next in line, of course, is a nun with a dozen children. The first little kid they hoist aboard has to pee. Nothing but tribulations.
It's enlivened, if that's the word, by some of the wisecracks of the light-hearted and optimistic Tommy Trinder. "You know what Nelson said -- England expects. That's why they call it the Mother Country." And, "You can take a horse to water but a pencil must be lead." Actually, now that I mull that over a bit, it's pretty funny.
The frolic is interrupted by the nasty Nazis who bomb hospitals and strafe roads filled with refugees. The refugees wind up dead, too, though not lingered over. Little of the horror is lingered over. It's not that kind of movie, any more than "The Lady Vanishes" was.
You know, what's most surprising about the movie is not that it's pretty good, which it is, including its special effects, but that it was made at all.
After all, this was released in 1942, a bad year for the Allies. Britain in particular was suffering. The Yanks had just been swept up in the war and not yet effectively mobilized. Cities like London and Coventry were bombed in a way that New York and Baltimore never were. Rommel was doing fine in North Africa. England was being strangled by U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. Russia was reeling. And here, under the most stringent conditions, a jolly good movie is produced and released.
An admirable job, considering. Ealing wasn't the studio producing splendid comedies that it was to become, but it's impossible to complain about "The Foreman Went to France." It would be an enjoyable divertissement under any circumstances.
Exciting adventure with humour and romance
Charlot4725 August 2013
Warning: Spoilers
Exciting adventure, with nice moments of humour and a bit of stiff- upper-lip romance, about the daring exploits of a factory foreman (Clifford Evans) who single handed goes over to France in June 1940 to retrieve some vital machinery before it falls into the hands of the advancing Germans. Vividly shot in black and white, with music by William Walton and script partly by J. B. Priestley, it portrays the tragedy of the French collapse and the terrible toll on civilians.
In a commandeered British Army lorry with two Tommies (Gordon Jackson and Tommy Trinder) and a blonde American secretary (Constance Cummings), commandeered as interpreter, he finds the machines and heads for the coast, but then the troubles start. They are strafed by German fighters, attacked by German dive bombers, fight through German infantry and shoot their way out of a German-held château. More sinister in a way are their encounters with fascists, collaborators and fifth-columnists. To viewers at the time, this collection of slime represented not only the shameful Vichy régime over the Channel but also the internal danger Britain could face.
Highly recommended, both as a period piece that gives you a window into that dangerous time and as an inspiring quest. Under challenge an ordinary man finds that he has the qualities of a hero, acquires loyal helpers, overcomes his evil adversaries, brings home the treasure and wins the beautiful girl.
In a commandeered British Army lorry with two Tommies (Gordon Jackson and Tommy Trinder) and a blonde American secretary (Constance Cummings), commandeered as interpreter, he finds the machines and heads for the coast, but then the troubles start. They are strafed by German fighters, attacked by German dive bombers, fight through German infantry and shoot their way out of a German-held château. More sinister in a way are their encounters with fascists, collaborators and fifth-columnists. To viewers at the time, this collection of slime represented not only the shameful Vichy régime over the Channel but also the internal danger Britain could face.
Highly recommended, both as a period piece that gives you a window into that dangerous time and as an inspiring quest. Under challenge an ordinary man finds that he has the qualities of a hero, acquires loyal helpers, overcomes his evil adversaries, brings home the treasure and wins the beautiful girl.
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