The Day Will Dawn

British wartime propaganda film in which Hugh Williams plays a British foreign correspondent investigating German U-boat activities in Norway. The disparate elements of the film however, in terms of location, narrative and character, do not seem to have been successfully combined into a cohesive whole. Apart from the Hugh Williams character there is a lack of focus, and the film comes across as episodic and disjointed. Ralph Richardson, for example, is for the most part wasted in a role which despite popping up briefly all over the place, seems to have very little relevance to either plot or theme. Finlay Currie, always worth watching, does well by his part and has the most convincing accent of the piece, but Deborah Kerr sounds as Norwegian as praties. Francis L Sullivan trots out another of his well worn villains.

Called the day will dawn in europe, but the avengers in canada and the united states. It's a brit film. Reporter colin metcalfe (hugh williams) is assigned to the european beat, after hitler moves into poland. When the germans sink his boat on the way to norway, no one seems to believe him. But he does fall for kari (young deborah kerr, in an early role), the captain's daughter. And as the german ships come into the harbor, pretending to be merchant ships, colin is abducted and held prisoner by the germans. Will metcalfe ever get to tell what he knows? Will his stories make a difference? The script is peppered with patriotic messages. A call to take action, avoiding neutrality, as hitler moves into more euro countries. Acc to imdb, this was released in the united kingdom in june 1942, so both britain and the united states were already actively in the war by then. This seems to start the story from earlier, before britain was involved in action. Directed by harold french. According to wikipedia dot org, french lost his own wife in a bombing raid in 1941. Produced by general films, and distributed in the united states by paramount. It's a little disjointed, but does show the chronology of events in europe.

The purpose of many of the films made during WWII was to rouse the people in favor of the war effort....a sort of positive propaganda effort. And, when it comes to this goal, few pictures do as well as "The Day Will Dawn" (also called "The Avengers").

The story begins with the Nazi invasion of Poland. The scene opens up in a newspaper office and folks are excited about the UK finally being at war...but also concerned that the British government has so far done nothing to check the Germans. One of the reporters, Colin Metcalfe (Hugh Williams) is sent on assignment to cover Norway. This is before the German occupation of the country, but Colin is concerned by the actions of the supposedly peace German seamen...he sees them as preparing for the invasion of Norway. His attempt to warn the British government and people is twarted however....and later he finally gets the chance to redeem himself....by sneaking back into Norway and helping his air force to locate and destroy a secret German submarine base.

The film has a pretty good cast. In addition to Williams, Ralph Richardson, Deborah Kerr (in one of her first films) and Finlay Currie also are there to provide excellent support. As far as the rest of the picture goes, it's near perfect and very well made....aside from the overuse of bad (scratchy) was stock footage.

Hugh Williams plays a reporter dropped into Norway to find a U-boat dock that is sending out convoys to destroy British ships. His job is to find it and report back so that our navy can destroy it. He meets and falls in love with beautiful twenty one year old Deborah Kerr, a Norwegian.

Various other well known faces from that era of British film making crop up including Finlay Currie as Kerr's father, Francis L. Sullivan as a brutal Nazi officer, Griffith Jones as a German police chief, the great Ralph Richardson as another reporter, Roland Culver as a British navy bigwig, even Bernard Miles in a small role towards the end.

Much of the film is shot in the dark, which can be a bit boring as I couldn't see a lot of what was going on, but maybe that was to cover up some of the cheap sets used. I don't think much money was spent on this production so probably best to think of it as a play rather than a film.

Our hero, Hugh Williams is stiff as a board but fortunately he's completely out acted by our leading lady and it is not hard to see why Kerr became one of the great star actresses of the cinema.

One gripe is that I would have given a higher rating had the actor's accents been more consistent. Some like Kerr and other Norwegians, at least speak in broken English, which I think gives an impression of being foreign but for some annoying reason, Francis L. Sullivan, who is fine otherwise as the nasty German officer, speaks in perfect English with no attempt to disguise his voice at all. That rather spoilt the film for me as other Germans also just spoke in English with no accent.

One scene towards the end is particularly harrowing so still worth a watch, and to see Deborah Kerr of course near the start of her brilliant career.

I found the best scenes in this movie to be the ones in which Deborah Kerr was acting. And I'm not even a fan of hers (or I wasn't, before this!) so that must say something about her...it was only about her 5th or 6th role, she was very young, yet she was perfect for the role. The rest of the movie traveled along fairly slowly, but luckily had a few exciting war time scenes, and an outstanding, terrifying, climax. Good for a rainy day, and don't give up on it. 7/10.