Millions Like Us – 1943 | 103 mins | Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Among the films cited as central to the breakthrough of Gainsborough is Millions Like Us (1943), written and directed by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat.

Jack Cox and Roy Fogwell photographed the documentary-inspired vision of life on the home front from the outbreak of the World War II. The film concentrates initially on the members of one lower middle-class family, and in particular Celia (Patricia Roc), one of the two daughters, who eventually leaves home to live in a hostel and work at an aircraft engineering factory, along with many other such ‘mobile women’. The narrative concentrates on this new community, where Celia marries Fred Blake (Gordon Jackson), a young man from the RAF, who is later killed in action. It is only, in the end, the communal bonds of the hostel – and by implication the nation that can hold Celia together. The most memorable scenes from a photographic point of view are those that take place in the large armaments factory where a disparate group of women are posted to serve on ‘the home front’. These convey a palpable image of industrial activity that not only provides an effectively realistic backdrop to the action, but also shows the documentary tradition of earlier films. The film was reissued in 1947.