I'll Turn to You

Denis Gifford in 'The British Film Catalogue' actually categorises this studio-bound but affecting dramatisation of the financial tribulations suffered by a returning ex-flyer (played by Don Stannard, later Hammer Films' Dick Barton before being killed in a car crash in 1949), while his wife wards off the blandishments of flush Ellis Irving, as a MUSICAL on the strength of the musical digressions that bookend it and sugar the pill of it's dramatisation of the obstacles he faces reestablishing himself in postwar austerity Britain. (The problems he encounters will be familiar to those who saw impecunious Douglass Montgomery and Dana Andrews suffer equivalent indignities in 'Little Man, What Now?' and 'The Best Years of Our Lives'.)

I suppose this scenario must have played out in quite a few households across the country after the end of WWII. "Roger" (Don Stannard) returns home to his loving wife "Aileen" (Terry Randall) and pretty much instantly struggles to settle down into his new, rather pedestrian, existence. They have very little money and he sees his wife (innocently) associating with friends like "Henry" (Ellis Irving) who can give her so much more than he can. It's this frustration that leads him to abscond - but a chance meeting with his supposed foe might just help him get his priorities straight. It's a very gently paced, rather contrived, story this with far too much dialogue: if she called him 'darling' one more time... and frankly it really struggles to sustain ninety-odd minutes. Indeed the last fifteen of those is set at a concert and luckily the fine dulcets of a Welsh choir and soloist John McHugh keep our attention while the melodrama reaches it's all-too predicable conclusion. It was made immediately after the end of the war, when sentiment would have been very deep and perhaps that gave it an added resonance at the time. Now, though, it's all rather weak and unremarkably performed by two stars who don't really shine.

The plot of I'll Turn to You - the struggles of a war-time serviceman to adjust to life as a civilian - might be a timeless one, but it's treatment here is too dated to be relevant today. Terry Randall is the faithful wife who tries to stand by Don Stannard as he slowly goes off the rails. Irene Handl provides some welcome comic relief as their accommodating landlady, but the ill-judged musical interludes and rushed ending prove fatal.

Oh my, given that servicemen had lost a proportion of their careers to war then this film is hugely disappointing in attempting to illustrate that point.

The quality of the film has pronounced noise and film distortion and you have to wonder if restored why they bothered?

The film is almost a parody of itself, insofar that this is full of the stiff upper lip and wooden acting of white empire, yet is meant to be post-war? How so?

The script is poor and over sentimental. It is set somewhere between middle and upper class yet the airman is using RP in Civie St - yet is trying to act the part of a lower ranker.

The women are dreadful Irene handle must wonder how she had a career after this one! The film ends abruptly and perfectly when the airman realises how silly he is! Bless.

As for the Edwardian orchestra - this film is stuck in some sort of time warp - completely ignoring the near -revolt of the men and women that returned home to find that spills were flourishing and that Churchill still wanted the little people to be obedient. This film doubt had a point but it is lost somewhere. I hope never to watch this again in my life time.

Dreadful.

I love watching films from this era... enjoyed this one too, but... it was awful... I mean quite ridiculous.... A very silly directionless film packed with cringeworthy script. Sadly the lead male actor who played Roger the returning soldier from Burma, lost his life in a car crash a year after this film was made... the actress who played his wife I believe is still alive at 106. Lots of strange musical interludes but it's not a musical. Worth a watch though to see what post war Britain was going to the cinema to watch.