FOREVER ENGLAND/BROWN ON RESOLUTION

UK, 1935, 69 minutes, Black and white.
Betty Balfour, John Mills, Barry Mac Kay, Jimmy Hanley.
Directed by Walter Forde.

This film is based on the novel by celebrated action writer, C.S.Forrester. He also wrote the Horatio Hornblower series, popular in film and, especially, on British television. He also wrote The African Queen which was set in World War I as is this story. The title of this story was originally Brown on Resolution.

This original title focused on Arthur Brown, a young sailor who showed himself heroic in action against the Germans. It is interesting that this film was released in 1935, memories of World War I and antagonism with the Germans – and four years before the outbreak of World War II.

The film opens in the 1893, a focus on the Navy at the time, a young woman, Betty Balfour, involved in a carriage incident in London, being hosted by a naval officer, Somerville, Barry Mac Kay, and she spends some days with him before he goes back to serve in the Mediterranean.

The screenplay then goes forward 20 years. There have been some glimpses of Elizabeth Brown’s son, Arthur, as a boy, a naval cadet, winning a medal for boxing. Just before the outbreak of World War I, Arthur Brown, now played by John Mills, goes through rigorous training, visits his mother who gives him a memento of his unknown father, a medal with H.N. for Horatio Nelson.

There are some encounters with German sailors, some fraternising. However, with the outbreak of war, there is conflict, a confrontation between a German ship and a British ship (and for the scenes the Admiralty had provided actual ships for the sequences). Arthur Brown and his good friend, Ginger, Jimmy Hanley, are captured but Brown decides to escape, gets himself onto a small island, works as a sniper against some of the German sailors and there is a confrontation between British and Germans with the Germans losing. Brown is wounded and dies.

At the end, the German commander tells Somerville that his son was killed in action. When Arthur Brown’s belongings are brought in, Somerville finds the Nelson medal that he gave to Brown’s mother, he also losing a son.

British action, British heroics, British morale.

The film is directed by Walter Forde who directed quite a number of small budget British films from the 30s to the 50s.