ChristineCB

The brutal acts by the women were another set of interesting choices. They could have bashed a few men over the heads and let the He-Men of the village administer the coup de grâce but again, more interesting decisions by the film-makers!

I don't know if any of the actresses had ever filmed such an act in their prior cinematic lives before, and this goes back to Steve's quip about "What would you do if-?" comes to mind.

Steve Crook

Has anyone read the book in the BFI Film Classics series?
These are personal essays by people and this one is by Penelope Houston, film critic and previously the editor of Sight and Sound.

Steve

alan gowdy

I think it was preferable NOT to expand on the reasons for the actions of the traitor. With invasion and the presence of spies a constant threat, the public needed to be vigilant and to expect the unexpected - to explain the motives for his actions in the screenplay would have diluted the message that the public needed to be alert to the fact that danger could be covert.

The device of portraying Mervyn Johns' character as speaking the prologue (and epilogue) from the 'safety' of an England which had won the war was an inspired one and succeeded as a means of relaxing the audience into a frame of mind that made the subsequent violence of the villagers seem all the more shocking but explicable ("the end justifying the means"). They needed to be shown what could have been so easily lost.

ChristineCB

Steve, thanks for that link.

Alan, your two points are my thoughts as well. The script's ability to offer explanations quickly and succinctly, and then the total absence of an explanation for the traitor's motives, had to be deliberate and this was likely based on your arguments.

"Inspired" use of the storyteller is probably the one thing that I kept rolling over in my head as the picture played on. To see the 'aged stone inscription' made me think this was a tale from perhaps decades into the future.

Steve Crook

Grammar gets a bit tricky when it's a film that was made in the past that was mainly portraying what was then approximately the present or the recent past and is made to appear to have been made at some time in the future so that most of it is like a flashback

Steve

DB7

I've always thought that Mervyn Johns sedate bookending of the film had a hint of pacifism to it given that many films of the time may have ended with a heartwarming communal ending or jingoistic triumphalism. On Leslie Banks character, without rationale I've imagined his choice was one of ideology and by choosing the local gentry as a fifth columnist it fits in with the Nazi supremacist ideology (would any of the other characters have made a realistic Nazi?) and warns the public that even the most respected member of a community could be a traitor.

The worst scene for Churchill was the cycling troops gunned down and iirc it took some protesting from Balcon to keep it in.

smudge

The framing of the piece (as described here) was surely the core propaganda element of the film ; we SHALL overcome and all will again be as it was, this quiet, undisturbed English idyll.

SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

ChristineCB

I didn't pick up that impression. When I watch it again, I'll see. But it's an interesting point when considering the brutality of some of the killings in it.

Rob Compton

The shock factor of the killings was deliberately done, especially against the peaceful English village background. The message was several-fold, I think:

1. Invasion might bring the necessity for "un-British" drastic action
2. Be on your guard at all times, you never know what those dastardly Germans might get up to.

Several other (in fact, come to think of it, most other) British propaganda films carry such messages, see "Next of Kin" and the short "Miss Grant goes to the door"

rgds
Rob

rweasel

Yes, The Houston book was very informative and added just another dimension to what is one of my favourite films of the period.

TimR

Yes, it's a great little film.

It is a highly effective and moving war-time drama, and succeeds in its primary goal: the stunning contrast between the Nazis and the ordinary decency of a village. The murder of the vicar and the postmistress and the sudden death of the Marie Lohr character by a hand grenade are genuinely shocking because of the contrast. That same postmistress hacks a soldier to death, while several of the women pick off the invaders with rifles and pistols.

This isn't the first time I have appreciated this forum. I remembered seeing that very brief scene many years ago of the woman shooting the Nazis from the manor house windows, but had not seen the film and did not know the title. It stayed with me. Several months ago I posted that on the forum and Batman identified it. I would never have placed it otherwise. I finally had the chance to watch it - and it made a fine companion piece to The Battle of Britain.

William Walton's score is a gem. His style of melancholy and nostalgia mixed with triumphalism exactly matches the film.

Hereafter, in a better world than this,
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you

Fellwanderer

Well worth watching in tandem with The Eagle Has Landed to compare and contrast the changing attitudes in the intervening 30 years. As it happens, TEHL is on this weekend so I shall endeavour to take my own advice - the presence of a certain Miss Agutter in TEHL may have influenced my decision somewhat

All the best
FELL

A signature is no substitute for a life

TimR

Oh yes - I saw that years ago and liked it very much. I see the similarities. I'll watch it again.

That's right - she is in that, isn't she....looking and sounding very good, as she always does.

How do you do it?

Boy, have you got it bad.

If we were talking about nuclear physics, we would discover that yes - Jenny Agutter does indeed have a connection with nuclear physics.

The connection might be tenuous and convoluted, but it is there and you will tell us the details...

Hereafter, in a better world than this,
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you

Fellwanderer

Indeed, I could In fact, I very nearly used nuclear physics rather than space travel in an earlier post today!

Nevertheless, both films are worthwhile and really should be seen in tandem so that changing attitudes can be experienced.

All the best
FELL

A signature is no substitute for a life

TimR

You see, I told you!

Nice comeback.

I saw it just after The Battle of Britain, and that made it especially compelling. I haven't seen The Eagles Has Landed in years. It was a great success here, and is easily available, so I will find a copy quickly.

Hereafter, in a better world than this,
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you