This Happy Breed

This British Technicolor domestic drama from Eagle-Lion and director David Lean charts 20 years in the life of the Gibbons family, from 1919 to 1939. Husband Frank (Robert Newton) has just returned from fighting in WW1, and he and his wife Ethel (Celia Johnson) are moving into a new home in a crowded working class neighborhood. We follow them as they have children, raise them, and deal with the various ups and downs of family life, all leading up to the outbreak of WW2. Also featuring John Mills, Kay Walsh, Stanley Holloway, Eileen Erskine, John Blythe, Amy Veness, Alison Leggatt, and the voice of Laurence Olivier.

Based on a play by Noel Coward, this bears some thematic similarities to 1933's Cavalcade. This is more accessible though, and certainly much better made. Technically the movie is a marvel, with perhaps the best looking color cinematography, courtesy of Ronald Neame, up to this point in film. Lean's direction is also very admirable, with interesting and innovative camera movement. There's one truly outstanding scene wherein a person who has bad news to share exits out of the back door into a garden to relay the message, only the camera stays inside the house, moving a bit, looking out into the backyard but not seeing the news being delivered, all the while loud, upbeat music is blaring from a radio. It's a shattering scene that depicts the often banal setting for life-changing developments. Unfortunately I found much of the rest of the movie uninvolving. The acting is good, very natural and played in the medium to low register. I just couldn't bring myself to get emotionally connected with much of it.

Whether or not, one agrees with the "truth or morality" of Noel Coward's ennobling view of the British "bourgeois" from 1919-1939, the acting and direction in "This Happy Breed", are superb, and what a cast. I think the notion of sacrifice, pride, and work ethic, might have easily been written about many similar low and middle income families in America from Brooklyn to San Francisco, during the same period, as it was portrayed in the equally, excellent film, "Best Years of our Lives" (1946)

The movie narrates the happenings of a British family since the first world war (1914-18) until the end second world war (1939-45) . The parents (Robert Newton and Celia Johnson) , the troubled and rebel daughter (Kay Walsh) , the friendly neighbor (Stanley Holloway) , the seaman son (John Mills) and others . Meanwhile , being reflected the course of time and are succeeding various historic deeds , thus : the first and second world wars , the soldiers recruitment , death of the king George , the jolly reception to Minister Chamberlain after the useless Munich Convention with Hitler , the trenches digging in preventing the bombing over London by the Germans .

The movie is interpreted by the greatest English actors with important careers . Robert Newton (Treasure island) , Celia Johnson (Brief encounter) , John Mills (Daughter of Ryan), Kay Walsh (Oliver Twist), Stanley Holloway (My fair lady) . Colorful and glittering cinematography by Ronald Neame , a future director with many successes (Adventure of the Poseidon) . Musical conducting by Muir Mathieson , habitual of English classic films , as he was director of symphonic orchestra of London . The picture begins and finishes with a camera travelling from exterior and interior home what it subsequently would be copied in a lot of films (for example : The Family by the director Ettore Scola) . The motion picture was perfectly directed by David Lean considered the greatest British filmmaker . Rating : Awesome . Above average.

What really boosts THIS HAPPY BREED into the "superior" category of British films is the direction by David Lean and the two central performances by CELIA JOHNSON and ROBERT NEWTON as the heads of a rather ordinary household living the provincial life between two World Wars. And what is surprising is that this '44 film from the U.K. uses Technicolor in an age when most films, unless they were spectacular musicals, were filmed in B&W. The color photography adds a handsome touch to the otherwise unspectacular story that is more a character study of a marriage and family relationships.

CELIA JOHNSON does a magnificent job as the mother who raises a daughter (KAY WALSH) unsatisfied with her family's social status, who yearns to rise above what she perceives as too provincial and runs off with a married man. It's just one of the many episodic tales in this domestic drama but it's played with such intensity by Johnson that the reunion scene toward the end is heartbreaking to watch.

All of the saga which stretches between the two wars is episodic, told in a series of vignettes which I imagine were done in blackout style on the stage, for which the tale was written. But Lean has successfully managed the transfer to the screen and all of the performances are top notch, particularly ROBERT NEWTON as the concerned father, JOHN MILLS as a man caught in an unrequited love affair and STANLEY HOLLOWAY who provides a good deal of comic relief as a boozy neighborhood friend of Newton.

Noel Coward evidently had more success in telling domestic tales with sharp observation of characters than Edna Ferber did with her own American sagas in which her characters seemed to get lost among all the vast territory she covered.

Summing up: Well worth watching for the performances alone.

I throughly enjoyed this little gem of a film. It is very well acted and it was nice to see a smart well groomed Robert Newton being a million miles away from Long John Silver. It had some laughs,some drama and quite a bit of sadness and as you get to know the different characters you feel a genuine fondness for them. I was brought up in the 1950's and recall visiting relatives who had grandmas and spinster aunts living with them, just like in this film. Though there is bickering and some harsh words used by the family, it does represent a time when families stuck together and deep down loved and respected one another. If you get the chance to see this movie, then I am sure that you will enjoy it.