TWO THOUSAND WOMEN

UK, 1944, 97 minutes, Black and white.
Phyllis Calvert, Flora Robson, Patricia Roc, Renee Houston, Anne Crawford, Jean Kent, James McKechnie?, Robert Arden, Thora Hird, Dulcie Gray, Carl Jaffe, Muriel Aked.
Directed by Frank Launder.

Two Thousand Women is an entertaining piece of British war propaganda coming from 1944. A Gainsborough production, it uses the talents of so many prominent British actresses as well as those who were to come into prominence in the 40s. Phyllis Calvert and Patricia Roc had appeared and were to appear in many Gainsborough comedies and costume melodramas. Jean Kent, Dulcie Gray, Thora Hird. Anne Crawford were to make names for themselves in the late '40s and '50s.

The film is contrived: showing a group of British women interned in France. It is a variation on the concentration camp escape story. The women give entertaining performances and vary in style, some of the incidents and dialogue are quite racy for the period. The film veers towards predictable melodrama and romance at the end but has a lot of production strengths which keep it a quite entertaining example of '40s moviemaking. Writing and direction is by Frank Launder of the Launder-Gilliat? team, responsible for such films as The Lady Vanishes and the St. Trinian's films.

1. An entertaining war propaganda film? Impact in its time? Later? British comedy, drama, melodrama, romance? Patriotism?

2. The quality of the cast? Atmosphere, France, sets? The war effort? A stylish film? The ingredients and conventions of action, spy melodrama, prison and concentration camp film? Comic touches? The final melodrama and strong touches of violence and death? The musical score and the patriotic songs? The strongly British tone at the end? (With the possibility of the British laughing at themselves and their mannerism?)

3. The reality of internees during the war, women stranded in Europe or arrested for espionage? The different types, the effect of their being collected together? The use of large chateaux and spas, Nazis, guards, officials, infiltrators? The internment chateau as giving a picture of the miniwar?

4. The tone of the film: the introduction to Rosemary, the nun, the torch, her interrogation, her story, prison and possible execution, accusation of Fifth Columnist? Her modesty, not looking in the mirror, the bath? The friendship with Freda? A pleasant young Englishwoman? The women discovering the truth about the convent? The airman and the reality of her past life? The melodramatic details? Credibility? Her encounter with the pilot and falling in love, hiding him, helping him, her stepping in in the concert? The attractive, quiet but plucky English type?

5. Freda as the competent writer, an attractive professional woman, leader, resourceful, glamorous? Her clashes with Bridey? Sharing the room with Rosemary? Taking situations in hand? Finding solutions?

6. The practical woman who ran the hostel, down to earth, good organiser?

7. Bridey and her striptease background, relationship with men, Freda's antagonism towards her? Her seductive manner towards the guard and later contacts with him? The women and the airmen's response to her liaisons with the Nazis? The hostility of the other women? Her hiding the Canadian flyer? Her infatuation with him? His rejection of her? Freda manoeuvering the situation for the escape? Her clash with the infiltrator, the fight after leaving the note? Her death, a sign of repentance?

8. Muriel and Clare and the proper elderly English ladies? Their style, dominating the British? The lights and their punishment, hiding the pilots, and the comedy about modesty and sexuality? Their being transferred?

9. The range of other women: Anne Crawford and longing for men, the photos on her walls, the glimpse of the pilot in the mirror? Dulcie Gray as the young girl who finds out about Rosemary, helps in the plans? The ladies' maids who were snobs? Wealthy women and the two wealthy women fighting? The range of the two thousand women?

10. The conventional sketch of the Germans, the guards, the interrogations, the women in charge, the section leader and her athletics and her being discovered as a spy? The fight with Bridey? The final confrontation and the seeming brutality of the women converging on her?

11. The quality of the screenplay and the attention to detail, the talk and the arrival and the welcome of the women, the rooms and the bath, food, the deals for cups of tea etc., the arrival of the pilots and the women's manoeuvres to help them,work, the search, the meeting, the concert etc.?

12. The sketch of the pilots, their landing, puzzle where they were, finding the women, hiding? Killing the Germans? The concert and the tension. the Commandant and the phone call, the pursuit?

13. An example of '40s British film-making: star turns, entertainment, serious intentions and propaganda?