Waterloo Road

"Waterloo Road" deserves to be better known than it is. If, like me, you were born after the war, it is a fascinating glimpse of a time gone by, but don't watch it for that alone. It is a story about ordinary people in wartime, without heroics and melodrama, but with an abundance of character and incident. The characters struck me as being true to life, and I didn't find a jarring line of dialogue or a scene which dragged. John Mills gave a fine performance as a soldier gone AWOL, and Stewart Granger as the cad out to seduce his wife. All in all, a wonderful little film.

I wonder how daring this film was for wartime with a sympathetic treatment of soldiers AWOL? Also unfaithful wifes, a worry to many soldiers, the ones that weren't frollicking with girls in liberated countries of course. My interest were lots of authentic outdoor scenes in wartime London. Only criticism was the requirement for the cad to be doubly punished!! (Villains had to be seen to punished for it to get by the censor). Alister Sims seemed menacing even though he was playing a good guy.

A young English soldier early in World War II (John Mills), learning his wife is stepping out with a spiv (Stewart Grainger, in a different sort of role) goes AWOL to have it out with the wife-stealer.

For Americans it's an eye-opening peek into wartime London. It wasn't all sing-songs in the Underground. It was also people dodging the army with phony certificates, homebodies romancing the wives of men at the front and illicit sales on the black market.

The slang may be difficult for Americans who aren't Anglophiles.

The best parts are when Alistair Sim pops in as the kindly doctor and (infrequent) narrator.

It has nicely comic touches to relieve the melodrama and plenty of odd British characters. Thank goodness. And at the end Sim has a curious explanation for Hitler.

Soldier Jim Colter, called up to fight in World War Two, goes AWOL to get to his home near Waterloo station after hearing that his wife is seeing a philandering conscription dodger Ted Purvis. Can he avoid being caught and save his marriage?

Wartime drama, not untypical of British films of this era, and watchable to the end. John Mills and Joy Shelton star as the couple but Stewart Granger excels as the charmer. Fine cameo by Alastair Sim who commands the screen each time he appears.

Waterloo Road is a tidily produced picture that is telling a pretty prickly story. The plot revolves around John Mills everyman railway worker Jim Colte, he gets called up to do his service in the army, leaving behind his recently wedded bride, Tillie. The local Lothario, Ted Purvis (Stewart Granger) has his eye on Tillie, and with Tillie feeling alone and vulnerable, Purvis may just get his wicked way with her. But Jim gets wind of this and after being refused compassionate leave by his superiors, he goes AWOL and intends to track Purvis down. We are told this story by Alastair Sim's wonderfully astute Dr.Montgomery, who has been sent a fair bit of work from previous Purvis doings.

The film plays out with Jim dodging the military police and lurching from one Purvis haunt to another, inter cut with this is us following Purvis and Tillie out on the town as the day of reckoning for all three of them draws near. When the finale comes it's well worth the wait, mighty midget John Mills (brilliant here) facing off against the tall and fulsome Stewart Granger, just as Adolf decides to bomb London! A smashing little film that is risqué with it's themes of unfaithful wives and soldiers absconding from service. 7/10