Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: In Which We Serve (1942) - Coward and Lean's marvelous Royal Navy war picture

12/29/2024

In Which We Serve (1942) - Coward and Lean's marvelous Royal Navy war picture

♥♥♥♥♥

A beautifully crafted poster for Noël Coward and David Lean's In Which We Serve

We follow the crew of the destroyer Torrin, which fights the Germans in 1941 as part of WWII but unfortunately suffers shipwreck. This calamity takes place in the film's beginning. After this flashbacks illuminate the captain and navy-men, their families and the time leading up to the battle.

In Which We Serve is written, produced, co-directed and co-composed by debuting great English filmmaker Noël Coward (Brief Encounter (1945, writer)), who also stars in it as the captain. He co-directed it with debuting English master filmmaker David Lean (Great Expectations (1946)). The film was made with the full support of the Ministry of Information as a propaganda effort in support of the ongoing British involvement in the war.

Technically astute, In Which We Serve is a fast-paced and handsomely photographed (by Ronald Neame (The Secret Four (1939))) war drama with striking incorporation of real war images as well as of real sailors as extras. Coward acts with impressive dignity and calm, and John Mills (Deadly Advice (1994)) is also eminent. A young Richard Attenborough (Hamlet (1996)) does fine as a panic-stricken sailor. None of the other men seem to have any faults at all, which may be the only flaw to this great picture.

Noël Coward: The Italian Job (1969) - Braindead boilerplate heist action-comedy regurgitated by swinging London (co-star)

David Lean: Top 10: Best epic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

Top 10: Best UK movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) - One of the greats

Great Expectations (1946) - Lean's first Dickens adaptation is pure cinema magic

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 240k £, approximately 967k $

Box office: In excess of 3.2 mil. $

= Big hit (projected return of 3.61 times its cost)

[In Which We Serve was released 17 September (UK) and runs 115 minutes. Shooting took place from February - June 1942 in England. Different sources dupe the film the year's most popular at the UK box office, or the second most popular. It reportedly grossed 300k £ in the Commonwealth, approximately 1.212 mil. $, and 2 mil. $ in rentals in North America, where it was also a big hit. With a cautious projected final gross of 3.5 mil. $, the film would rank as a big hit. The film was nominated for 2 Oscars: Best Picture, lost to Casablanca, and Original Screenplay, lost to Norman Krasna for Princess O'Rourke. Coward won an honorary Oscar for the film, which also won 4 National Board of Review awards. Coward did not direct a feature again but instead racked in credits as a producer, composer, writer and actor. Lean returned with This Happy Breed (1944). As an actor Coward returned with uncredited voice performances in Blithe Spirit (1945) and Brief Encounter (1945) and finally with a physical performance in The Astonished Heart (1950). In Which We Serve is fresh at 90 % with a 7.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

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Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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12/29/2024

In Which We Serve (1942) - Coward and Lean's marvelous Royal Navy war picture

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