PICCADILLY INCIDENT

UK, 1946, 102 minutes, Black and white.
Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding, Michael Laurence, Frances Mercer, Coral Browne, A.E. Matthews, Edward Rigby, Brenda Bruce.
Directed by Herbert Wilcox.

Piccadilly Incident was the first film with Anna Neagle and Michael Wilding. It led to a successful series with titles including Maytime in Mayfair, Spring in Park Lane, The Courtneys of Curzon Street, Derby Day. All the films, as so many of Anna Neagle's films, were produced and directed by: her husband Herbert Wilcox.

This is a wartime romance story. It focuses on a couple who meet during the Blitz, their quick marriage, their separation and the wife being involved in the fall of Singapore and marooned on an island and thought dead. The husband marries again. on her return, it is not only the marriage that is in difficulty but the film focuses on questions of the law and the legitimacy of the husband's child by his second wife. The film ends sadly and sentimentally with Anna Neagle's death ? but also with the declaration of illegitimacy of the child.

The film is a pleasant '40s romance story - the touch of patriotism, the experience of the war, the touches of frankness and tension between the men and women stranded on the island. It is a film out of the past.

1. An interesting and entertaining film? The war, the British? Romance? Sentiment? The popular films of the '40s?

2. The stars and their popularity? The influence of this film on the subsequent series? The atmosphere of the war, post-war Britain, moods? the war experience? The musical score, the songs?

3. The flashback framework: the point about justice, the legitimacy of the child? The final judgment and its sombre tone?

4. The sense of World War Two, black and white photography, the raids on London, the Blitz? Commitments of army personnel? Meetings? The Piccadilly incident and the encounter because of the Blitz? The irony of the ending with Diana's death?

5. Anna Neagle as Diana: the war, the services, in a hurry, meetings, the encounter with Alan? Falling in love, the meetings? At the base, her song and dance routines (and their elaborate style)? Comedy? Her nickname, Sunshine? The marriage? The meeting with Alan's father? Separation? True love?

6. The fall of Singapore, evacuation, the torpedo, the island? Bill and the tensions? Surviving? Sailing from the island, the American rescue? In the U.S.? Diana's return, the discovery of the wife and child? her reticence? Going to see Alan, his playing the piano? His love for her? move out of his life? The irony of her death?

7. Alan, the war, the encounter with Diana, falling in love, the outings, his family? Her disappearance? His depression, wounded? The wife? The birth of the child? Memories, the playing of the piano? The meeting with Diana? At her death?

8. The wife, a good woman, support of Alan, the marriage, accepted in the family, the child? Her pleasantness with Diana?

9. Alan's father, support? His sister, friendship? The sketch of the British family?

10. Singapore, its fall, evacuation? The torpedoes? The island? Diana and her friend? Coping on the island, tension, loneliness, sexual frustration?

11. The intercutting of the sequences on the island with Alan's experience in England?

12. How real? Sentimental? Romantic? A film of the '40s?