They Were Not Divided

"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"

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.

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.

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.