THE CAPTIVE HEART
UK, 1946, 104 minutes, Black and white.
Michael Redgrave, Rachel Kempson, Frederick Leister, Mervyn Johns, Rachel Thomas, Jack Warner, Gladys Henson, Gordon Jackson, Derek Bond, Mariel Forbes.
Directed by Basil Dearden.
The Captive Heart was made just after World War Two and filmed in an actual prison. It is the story of post-Dunkirk activity when many British were imprisoned in concentration camps.
Michael Redgrave is an escapee who assumes the identity of a British officer – and to conceal his true identity during his years of internment, he has to correspond with the dead officer’s wife. The wife is played by Rachel Kempson, Michael Redgrave’s wife in real life.
There are some very strong and stalwart British actors in support especially Jack Warner and Gordon Jackson. The direction is by Basil Dearden who began directing at the beginning of World War Two and continued during the war with small-budget films. However, his contributions to the omnibus film, Dead of Night, led to The Captive Heart, to bigger-budget films and a great number of significant small films during the 1950s. One that stands out is his police story, The Blue Lamp, with Jack Warner and Dirk Bogarde.
At the end of the 1950s he made some significant films with social comment, Sapphire about racism, Victim, with Dirk Bogarde, about homosexuality. His biggest-budget film and most spectacular was Khartoum in 1966 with Laurence Olivier and Charlton Heston.
This film is interesting to see in the light of its being made in 1946, capturing the spirit in Britain immediately after the end of World War Two as it began to reflect on its war experiences.
1. What was the emotional impact of this film? What must have been its impact in its time? Why? The significance of the, title and its tone?
2. What was the value of such war dramas? What would have been the value in the mid-40s? As part of history? Now?
3. Comment on the British style of this film? Its underplaying of high adventure? Its British presentation of emotion? How genuine did it seem?
4. The use of the documentary flavour of the film, the blending of fiction and fact? A sense of realism about these men and these happenings?
5. How appropriate was the flashback technique? The interchanging of two worlds, of the present and the past? The observation of human nature in different situations? How did this add to the value of the film and its emotional impact?
6. The effect on these men of being captured so early in the war? The presentation of the prison camps? The hard aspects and the easy aspects? Men transferred from ordinary jobs into such a life for so many years? Friendship, the fights? The difficult adaptation? The hopes, the attempts to escape? The impact of death? Lives and times passing, the gaps in their life? How well was this communicated? Which sequences illustrated it best?
7. How interesting were the British as presented in the film? Dalrymple as the commanding officer, his style, stiff upper lip, his betting background, his concern for the men? Ted and Di as ordinary men, their background, family, wives and children, very ordinary British style? Matthews as a young robber, throwing his weight around, learning some self-sacrifice and growing up in the camp? Stephen and the contrast with his artistic background, the emotional complexities of his life? David as the ordinary Scotsman, the sadness of his being blind, his memory of his mother and girlfriend, his suffering, the fact that he could not be operated on? The ordinary soldiers, the suspicious soldiers? Was this an adequate cross section of British life?
8. How interesting a character was Rasek? The introduction into the film, his background as a Czech intellectual, the Nazi persecution, his decision to assume British identity? How genuine a sympathetic person was he? The initial hostility, the change to helping him? Living his life in the camp in fear? The ever present danger of Forster recognizing him? The necessity of writing in his new identity? How did this change him? His need to escape? his capacity for love? the truth dawning on him? The title as referring to him?
9. How attractive a person was Celia? The change in her life with the letters coming from the camp? The hopes building up over the years? The importance of knowing the truth? Was the ending appropriate, right amount of sentiment and fulfilment? The title as referring to her?
10. The emotional impact of Ted and Di returning home? The simple greeting of the wife? Di’s dead wife? Starting work again? Seeing the baby for the first time? This as communicating the realities of homecoming?
11. How satisfactory the melodramatics of Stephen and his love for Caroline? Darrel and the melodramatic jealousy?
12. The simplicity of David and Elizabeth reconciling even though he was blind?
13. How important was detail in this film, such sequences as the concert, the digging of the tunnel, Matthew’s plan for changing the name and its execution, the reality of death?
14. What comment on human nature, life, and time passing, the war, did this film give?
