The Next of Kin – 1942 | 102mins | War, Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

The Next of Kin brought Thorold Dickinson to Ealing on a special assignment. He had produced Midshipman Easy and directed High Command in Basil Dean‘s day, and some years later was to make Secret People, his last film for Ealing. But in 1942 he was a rarity, a non-Ealing director making an Ealing film. It started as a training short, and to make it Dickinson had to be seconded from the army, although there had been a slight security hitch when it was discovered that he had been on the anti-Franco side of the Spanish Civil War. Captain Sir Basil Bartlett drafted a storyline designed to point out the dangers of careless talk, a subject which Balcon felt deserved a far wider audience than a purely service one. He got Dighton, MacPhail and Dickinson to build it up into a full-length commercial feature, and more than doubled the production budget with an injection of Ealing money.

Mervyn Johns was cast as a Nazi agent at large in Britain with the brief to discover the details of a planned commando raid on a French port. With horrifying ease he is able to fit the jigsaw together without attracting suspicion. The raid takes place and, although it achieves its purpose, it is devastating in terms of casualties, because the enemy is prepared for the attack. ‘Careless talk costs lives’ was the wartime slogan that formed the message of the film; and at the end the spy is still free, eavesdropping in a railway compartment on the indiscreet conversation of two officers, played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne. Besides many familiar actors, a few serving officers were also given small parts without ill effect.

The raid, shown in graphic detail, was staged on the Cornish fishing village of Mevagissey, standing in for France. Fact overtook fiction, and before the film could be released the disastrous raid on Dieppe took place, which claimed the lives of thousands of troops. Once again Churchill tried to stop a film from being shown, this time on the grounds that it would cause great distress to the next-of-kin of those lost at Dieppe. But as with Ships with Wings he allowed a military opinion to override his own. In the Press it was known as the ‘hush-hush’ film because it had been shot in secrecy, the details of its story kept under wraps. The news that there was a chance that the public would not be permitted to see it caused a small storm in a teacup. The controversy had undoubtedly helped the film’s chances, and it made a very handsome profit. But Ealing’s deal with the government meant that their return was limited to their investment, plus a very small percentage, the rest going into the coffers of the treasury.

Extract© George Perry: Forever Ealing.