WATERLOO ROAD

UK, 1944, 76 minutes, Black and white.
John Mills, Stewart Granger, Alastair Sim, Joyce Shelton, Jean Kent.
Directed by Sidney Gilliat.

Waterloo Road is one of many morale-boosting films made during World War Two. It was made at Gainsborough Studios, better known for its flamboyant historical epics like The Wicked Lady.

This is a brief film, made towards the end of the war, with Alastair Sim voicing hopes that all will be better with Britain after the war, commenting that Britain had more or less got through the war well.

The film uses an atmosphere of real locations around Waterloo Station. It shows the families living there, the dance halls for the soldiers, the spivs who got forged documents and stayed out of the war. It shows the difficulties of wives whose husbands were absent and the spitefulness of family members.

John Mills is the soldier whose wife (Joyce Shelton) is attracted towards local spiv (Stewart Granger). Alastair Sim is the local doctor who comments on the themes as well as gives advice to the characters. Sidney Gilliat was to go on, in partnership with Frank Launder, to make some classics, especially with Alastair Sim, The Green Man and The Belles of St Trinian's.

1. Wartime images, propaganda, morale-boosting?

2. The title, the authentic atmosphere of the streets and railway stations around Waterloo? Black and white photography? Musical score?

3. The glimpse of a day around Waterloo Road during the war: the family and their clashes, the letter to Jim, the boarder and his pigeons, Ted Purvis and his being a man-about-town, the MPs and their chasing soldiers away without permission? The details of characters in shops, railway stations, bars, dance halls?

4. The basic situation with Ruby complaining to Jim about Tilly? Her mother and her concern? The younger daughter at school? The boarder? The temptation for women who were unhappy during the war to take up with the local man-about-town? The letter, Jim coming on leave without permission, going home, the MPs chasing him (meeting the Canadian who helped him escape)? His searching for Tilly all day, glimpsing her, asking Tom, the woman who disliked Purvis giving him some help, meeting the doctor after he had been bashed and getting his advice to attack Purvis? Finally finding him, the confrontation and fight, the reconciliation? Three years later and Jim Junior and the hopes for the future?

5. Jim as a loyal ordinary citizen? The contrast with Purvis, forging his papers, with the ladies, drink, gambling, his henchmen? The attraction towards Tilly, wanting to seduce her? His turning on her at the end of the day? The fight with Jim? His going to the doctor - and finding the document and a true statement about his health?

6. The doctor, the good British doctor, observations, helping people, giving them advice? Expressing hopes for the future?

7. Tilly, her relationship with Jim, the tensions, attracted to Ted Purvis, going out, the clashes at home? The final
reconciliation with Jim? The final advice of the doctor?

8. The focus on the Coulter family: Jim away at war, Tillie and her love for her husband, her succumbing to Ted Purvis? The mother and her running of the family, the older sister and her boyfriend (and their not coinciding in work shifts), the younger sister and her being attacked for listening, the boarder, his place in the house, the pigeons, his seeing Tillie during the day, not wanting to tell Jim? An ordinary Waterloo Road family?

9. Ted Purvis and his not being in military service, paying for his medical certificate (and the irony that it was correct)? His influence in the district? Man about town? Eye for the girls, pursuing Tilly, his persuading her to spend the day with him: Confrontation with Coulter? With Dr. Montgomery?

10. The gallery of smaller characters in Waterloo Road: at home, in the bar, on the street, the hairdresser?

11. A period piece - highlighting British attitudes during the war, in the retrospect of the decades afterwards and the impact of the war on Britain? The presentation of traditional English values? Tested by the Blitz experience? The post-war period?