Avaliações de usuários

The BBC recently aired this on a lazy Monday afternoon in mid-August when probably not many were watching. But as this was made by Terence Young (future director of some prolific Bondmovies) I happened to tape it.

What a great surprise this proves to be. Probably about the sole movie account of a (chiefly) British tank battalion journey into France and Belgium after D-Day.

I will admit it's all very "stiff British upperlip" (jolly good show boys and so on)and especially the romance segments have dated badly, but there is a true feel of authenticity, not only that it's made about 4 years after WWII, but the director gives a realistic and almost documentary-like style to the battle scenes.

It all moves along at a brisk pace, and being a bit of WWII buff, it gave me a very rare insight and almost 'behind the scenes' view of a tankbatallion in action in 1944.

I'll doubt if it is available on DVD so you will maybe have to wait till the BBC airs it again, in 10 years or so !

Typical British WW2 film but made interesting with battle scene of Tiger tanks - must have been war loot and what happened to it after the film was made? Sadly the film shows just how smallminded and nitpicking the officers are towards the men during training and then battle. Tank driver being told to button tunic up to chin despite heat in tank! Romantic scenes are very believable. It is well worth watching though!

This is an early work of Terence Young, the director, but a well-made, engrossing and ultimately very moving British war drama of World War II. Interestingly a very young Desmond Llewelyn has a cameo role as a Welsh tank commander, and when it came time for Young to find a new Q for the second James Bond movie, the original no longer being available, he remembered Llewelyn and cast him in what is now the longest running continuous role in the James Bond saga.

It's life in a tank division of the Welsh Guards -- writer-director Terence Young's unit during the Second World War -- from training through the Battle of the Bulge. It centers on an American volunteer, Ralph Clanton, and Edward Underdown, but it's a movie of flashes and vignettes, impressions of war closely realized, where a battlefield has a dead cow amid the advancing tanks, and crews are briefed in barns, where cockerels strut about.

There's little doubt in my mind that Young drew the threads of this movie from his own experience, and hewed to the dictum that drama is life with the dull parts cut out. The result is a series of closely drawn individuals, including Michael Trubshawe in his screen debut and Christopher Lee in a small role in his eighth movie: to some a career, but he would appear in 188 more.

The only times when the movie slows down, when scenes last minutes instead of seconds, is when Underdown is with his wife, Helen Cherry, and Clanton with his English girlfriend, Stella Andrew. These, the film tells us, are life. The rest of it, the entire war, is some weird, senseless dream.

Starting 'today' with Princess Elizabeth riding behind her late father on Horse Guard's Parade, and then flashing back to 1941. Harry Waxman's atmospheric black & white photography facilitates the use of copious amounts of actuality footage (including both Montgomery & Eisenhower), rather at odds with Lambert Williamson's lush score.

Director Terence Young later hit the big time with the James Bond films; hence the reappearance in them of several of this film's supporting cast (including 'Q' himself).

An interesting movie due to its quick overview of the trials and tribulations of a British armored division during WW2. And when I say quick, I mean in every sense: the events narrated, the editing, the dialogues. Everything seems to be rushed, and events unfold one after another at breakneck speed. Surely, it's part of the film's objective to showcase the swiftness of an armored division, in contrast to infantry, which has a slower, more tedious pace if you will. But in haste, it's very easy to make mistakes, and this film has a few. I understand that everything advances so rapidly, but advancing the Anzio landing to 1943 when it actually occurred in 1944 is pushing it too far.

Nevertheless, the film manages to pique some interest; the fast-paced editing appears quite contemporary and appealing, although modern filmmaking tends to overuse this narrative device. The cinematography is spot-on, with good shots and evident artistic ambition, featuring deep and dramatic black and whites and pronounced chiaroscuro that would easily meet the basic requirements of any selection for the Magnum Agency.

In terms of storytelling, it falls quite short in depth, with the typical snappy dialogues that don't delve into the psychology of the characters. Perhaps the problem lies in trying to encompass the entire geographical journey of this armored division in a single movie spanning more than four years of war across Europe. From a war cinematography perspective, the film is interesting due to its display of resources; it's even possible to catch a glimpse of an original German Tiger Tank, something that cinema would take decades to see again. However, like the rest of the film's resources, this aspect is also treated superficially; there's no time for more. There's no time for real battles, no time to face the enemy head-on, hardly any casualties, and the enemy is almost invisible, nearly nonexistent, an enemy that offers no resistance to the frenetic advance of the swift division.

But of course, the director doesn't want to show us the bitter face of war; he only aims to cement the already evident Anglo-American relations with a propagandistic film. In its final sequence, with the two flags, the British and the American, overlapping, it definitively seals this alliance.

This is quite an interesting drama-documentary that largely sets out to reinforce the inter-reliance of British and American forces during WWII. It follows the training and perilous escapades of an armoured regiment from the Brigade of Guards as they take their tanks into the low countries towards the end of the war. It cleverly interweaves actuality footage with the dramatised action delivering superbly shot scenes married with some more intimate assessments of the characters we are following. The actors themselves are far less important to the overall message - the two principals being the American Ralph Clanton ("Morgan") and Edward Underdown ("Hamilton") - they develop and come to represent the bond that binds the two armies, nations - with a message that what they have in common is not necessarily a tangible thing, but the higher purposes of freedom etc. There's a more substantial role for Michael Trubshawe ("Maj. Noble") equipped with a formidable moustache and the eagle-eyed amongst us might spot Desmond Llewellyn and Christopher Lee amongst the solid supporting effort. It's is a bit slow at times, and the dialogue pretty stilted - loads of stiff upper lip stuff - but overall, it's an informative, if at times, speculative glimpse into wartime attitudes and behaviour on the front line that is well worth watching.

I was hoping for a more compelling film; but there was far too much dialogue, and not enough action. Especially, after the basic training section of the film, which is actually the better part of the movie.

There were just too many bromides and cliches that were continually interfering with the natural evolution of the film. The actors did a competent job, as did the director, but the production values, to say the least, were slipshod. Maybe it was because it was an armored division. Armored division films of WW all seem to suffer from similar shortcomings; with the exception of Patton. Films like The Battle of the Bulge, The Battle of Alamein, Desert Fox, Rommel, and even the modern Fury with Brad Pitt, all had character development problems, action sequence problems, and pacing problems.

Doing dialogue for these types of films is very difficult to accomplish; that is why very few of them are highly praised compared to infantry, naval, and air force films. The natural confining aspect of a tank does not lend itself to good development of dialogue. However, to be fair, the film is watchable and entertaining, and will satisfy most WW 2 genre fans.

This early Terence Young film is a unique masterpiece of its kind. It tells a true story of two soldiers getting trained and fighting together from after Dunkirk up to the battle of the Ardennes, that is four years, giving a very natural and meticulous account of their lives and comrades, their jokes, their life in the barracks, their girls and wifes and sweethearts, their dreams and their every day existence at war, at the front, at the pub, at some parties - a film couldn't almost be more humanly documentary. In addition, the direction is superb all the way, perfectly natural, the pace is constantly efficient and sustained the whole way, it doesn't really tell a story, it just follows the soldiers around everywhere, the dialogue is intensive the whole way, and it is not until the last scenes when it all comes together and proves an overwhelming masterpiece. This is a film to watch again.

THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED is a near-forgotten British WW2 movie, directed by none other than Terence Young, the man who would later helm DR NO and FROM Russia WITH LOVE amongst other well-remembered movies. By comparison, this is the kind of film that few people bother watching and even fewer remember these days. It doesn't help that the script is quite dry, the narrative fairly stodgy, and there's a distinct lack of big-name actors to give audiences a reason to watch. Instead, THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED goes for a low key, almost documentary-style approach as it follows new recruits as they join a Welsh Guards battalion, train, and eventually journey to France to see action in their tanks.

This kind of template is familiar from the modern-day likes of BAND OF BROTHERS but the execution is only so-so here. There's a lot of talk and back-and-forth dialogue, but when it comes to the action, the big set-pieces that everybody remembers are hurried through. Stock footage is also used quite liberally. I didn't mind the unknown lead actors, although the heavy-handed messages smack of propaganda (basically, America and Britain should work together as one) which is bizarre given that the war had been over for four years when this was shot.

Most of the fun comes from spotting future actors in support. Michael Brennan (LUST FOR A VAMPIRE) is particularly good fun as the enthusiastic Welsh soldier, and there's a cameo from real-life RSM Brittain, who adds some humour. Christopher Lee only has a couple of lines but is in the background in almost every scene in the film, while future Q Desmond Llewellyn plays a tank driver.

"They Were Not Divided" is a British WWII film about a Welsh tank unit that also seems to have a lot of Americans, Englishmen and Canadians among them. It takes place from just after Dunkirk in 1940 and ends with the fall of Germany.

The story is VERY episodic and character development is seemingly unimportant. This makes the film a bit less involving and cold than a typical war story...which is its biggest weakness. As a result, it comes off like a Cliff Notes version of the war in Europe. It's not terrible at all but could have been better.

By the way, most of the 'Americans' in the movie sound exactly like Brits TRYING to sound American. I think British viewers would not have noticed this, but Americans sure will be able to tell they aren't from home! Now I know how Brits feel when they watch American films with horrible British accents...such as Bert in "Mary Poppins"