The Way to the Stars

source: Johnny in the Clouds

The Way to the Stars

Excellent wartime film, designed as propaganda, but so well-made that it's a lasting British classic. John Mills and Michael Redgrave star as the fliers who become firm friends. We are let into their lives and loves and it's a warm film that feels genuine. Like the trial scene in Powell & Pressburger's magical "A Matter Of Life And Death" director Anthony Asquith also has something to stay about British-American relations during WW2, finding humour in the differences yet also heart. Mills may slip under people's radar because he's always so quiet and efficient, Redgrave is magnetic on screen. Very well edited and shot, it's one you must check out.

This film is possibly my favorite film. Having seen it late at night on the ABC (Australian) I waited a year reading the television guide regularly until it was on again and taped it. I have since bought it on DVD. This is a brilliant look at the airmen based in Britain during WWII. It doesn't glorify the war or show one bomb dropping over Germany, but it glorifies the Men and Women who lived the times and suffered the war in a time when the fate of the world was uncertain. Touching and truthful. The cast are amazing and the script has a sense of humor which has long been associated with Britain in war times. the relationship between the English and Americans is at times funny when it comes to cultural differences, but as today the two countries stood together.

One of my all-time favourites, and always will be. Made in the months immediately after WW2, it charts the history of a typical RAF airfield, with particular emphasis on the 1942 arrival of US bomber crews. Their huge social impact on a rural English community is treated with warmth and much wry humour. Those looking for an exercise in gritty documentary realism, though, should look elsewhere! This is essentially a 'relationships' movie, deliberately and finely calculated to tug at the heart strings. A very fine script (by Terence Rattigan, no less) is brought to vivid life by lovely performances from all concerned. Sentimental? Undeniably, but in the best possible way: I defy even the hardest-bitten cynic to remain unmoved.

Interesting, but yet slow moving British drama dealing with an airbase and accompanying inn during World War 11. Toddy, the innkeeper, has the misfortune to lose her husband, leaving her with the inn to manage and an infant. She then becomes friendly with an American flyer, and while there is nothing to indicate that she'd break up his marriage, she had a deep admiration for him and then tragedy strikes again. The writer of this movie, Terence Ratigan, seems to have a * with inns, innkeepers and dominant mothers and daughters as we saw years later in the memorable "Separate Tables." We certainly have elements of that film again in the guise of a domineering aunt who smothers her niece, the latter looking for love with flyer John Mills. The picture, nicely done, deals with both American and British flyers at the base.

The great thing about this war flying film is that there's hardly any flying in it. It's all about the terrible toll war takes on normal people. What makes it so gripping to a modern audience is how the characteristic emotional restraint of people at that time is so faithfully portrayed. That's why it doesn't date. You just know that's how people really were back then. Above all, it's the Rattigan screenplay, with its wonderful trilogical structure that speaks out. If you want to see how people really felt and acted in England in WW2, in a beautiful, tragic film, then you must see it.

What an excellent film, with a cast that lifts it above other films made during WW2. Was there a British war film made that did not have John Mills starring in it? Many of the actors here went on to become familiar faces in film and British TV. The story-line and the absence of background music do make this film both nostalgic and entertaining. It may interest some that the 'Golden Lion' in the film does exist, it is a hotel in Northallerton, North Yorkshire. The street scenes were shot in nearby Bedale. I'm not sure which airfield was used, but it may have been one of the many bomber bases situated in this area, such as Leeming or Dishforth.