HANOVER STREET
US, 1980, 109 minutes, Colour.
Harrison Ford, Lesley- Anne Down, Christopher Plummer, Alec Mc Cowen, Patsy Kensit, Michael Sacks, Richard Masur.
Directed by Peter Hyams.
Hanover Street is designed for nostalgia/romance: Panavision, London sets 1943, John Barry's very lush score, air warfare (Yanks in England) plus a mission in occupied France that rather stretches the imagination with its coincidences and heroism. It is soap opera material with predictable situations and characters (almost to the point of parody), dialogue, actions. However, it is stylishly written and, finally, gets away with it - its combination of war romance themes, the engaging Harrison Ford, beautiful Lesley- Anne Down and sympathetic Christopher Plummer (as befits soap opera, 1943, beautiful people). Supporting character actors enhance atmosphere and plausibility. Its picture of an affair is humane and brings back unfashionable, more traditional values. Writer-director Peter Hyams has worked in romantic nostalgia e.g. Our Time and action melodrama Capricorn One.
1. The nostalgic appeal of the film? World War Two, England at war, the American occupation? The love story? The style of love stories in war during the '40s? Impact in the '80s? The prologue explaining the situation, the emphases on choices being clear in war, the accident of people removed from home and falling in love?
2. The use of Panavision, colour, sets of London 1943, the aerial warfare sequences, the espionage story and the French environment? The escape? British war officers? The use of large screen for a romance with war film? Tone?
3. The title, the meeting place for David and Margaret? The love story tone of the title? The choice to fall in love, temporary affairs, war and affairs?
4. The establishing of the war situation: the queues, Halloran and his day off, Margaret and her work in the hospital, life at the American Air Force bases, intelligence work and personnel and problems, training? How life in England? The barracks? The film's attention to detail for the look and the tone of the period?
5. The comedy with David and Margaret meeting with the bus, pretending to be pregnant, lame? The chance encounter? The plausibility of the immediate attraction, having tea? Talking? The reservation of Margaret's name? Hanover Street as the meeting-place? Halloran waiting, Margaret watching? Her decision to come? The drive in the countryside? The love sequences and their treatment? The emphasis on hands and the editing of the sequences? The passing of time and the superimpositions of the characters and their meetings? Margaret finally giving her name? The genuineness of feeling and love? The atmosphere of tenderness, loneliness, passion, communication, dependence? Margaret's talk about her home? Halloran and his talking about Chicago?
6. The portrait of Halloran - meeting him on his day off, his presence at the briefings and Bart and his criticisms? His bonds with his companions? The banter, the missions and the feel of flak, crashes, death? Special skills? His humiliation by Bart? The special mission, the deaths of his two companions and their effect on him? His participation in the mission?
7. The contrast with Paul - the gentle sequences at how, his description of himself as pleasant and his reaction against it, his love for his daughter, the sequences with Margaret and her daughter? Family talk, presents? The coolness in the intimate scenes with Paul and Margaret? Her regrets? Her saying that he did not do anything wrong? His anxiety? Margaret and the infidelity and his not knowing it? Paul and his training the personnel? The phone call from his office to the hospital and his decision to go on the mission? His motivation?
8. The war offices, intelligence, the leaks and the killing of agents? The training sequence for the officer and his speaking German? Paul's decision to go himself, the flight, the drop, surviving with Halloran? Helping each other in the night, the hayloft and the death of the German officer, the French girl and her support, the car, the depositing of the documents in the safe (and the previous training about safes), the return, the difficulties with documentation? The shoot-out
after Halloran tried not to speak? The car chase? The farmer betraying them? The bike chase, the heroics at the bridge? Paul's possible death, Halloran's rescuing him? The Resistance?
9. David and his being involved in the mission, the humour of his situation in not speaking German? His becoming aware of Margaret as Paul's wife? Saving him on the bridge?
10. Paul and his need for heroism, to relate to his wife and be something in her eyes? His long talk about his wife, about his being pleasant? His final courage?
11. The picture of the Germans, the French girl and killing the German, the farmer and his betrayal? Authentic atmosphere of occupied France?
12. The major and his working with Paul? Margaret's phone calls and visits to him? His idiosyncrasies about tobacco?
13. The build-up to the finale - Margaret's arrival at the hospital, the encounter with David, his decision that he loved her so he must let her go? Her going to her husband?
14. The conventions of the plot, the cliche situations and incidents, dialogue? The impact of the film through this? Sentiment, sentimentality? Audiences identifying with the characters?
15. Themes of war, strangers in war, the upsetting of values, the shaking of commitments, testing of commitments, self-sacrifice?
