THE FOREMAN WENT TO FRANCE
UK, 1942, 87 minutes, Black and white.
Tommy Trinder, Constance Cummings, Clifford Evans, Gordon Jackson, Robert Morley, John Williams, Francis L. Sullivan, Mervyn Johns.
Directed by Charles Frend.
The Foreman Went to France is a piece of British propaganda for World War Two, Made at Ealing Studios and released in 1942. It goes back to the beginning of the war, the blitz on Britain and the need for British manufacturers going to France to retrieve machinery that had been sent for the Allied cause before the Germans took over. This means that the film is a mission, accomplished by the foreman of the factory with the help of the American secretary of the company in France.
They meet a couple of soldiers (Tommy Trinder cracking jokes and singing a few songs) and Gordon Jackson (aged nineteen at the time). They also encounter a Fifth Columnist mayor (Robert Morley) and an officer (John Williams). The foreman is played by Clifford Evans and the secretary by Constance Cummings (an American actress who stayed in England and worked in such films as The Battle of the Sexes). At the end, after getting through enemy lines, confrontation with German officials, help from Sisters of Charity in a convent, they arrive at the Channel and are helped by a group of French trying to flee to England, led by Francis L. Sullivan.
The film is quite interesting still and creates the atmosphere of the period, filmed in the aftermath of the rescue at Dunkirk.
1. A British war effort film? Ealing Studios? The cast? The impact at the time? Now?
2. Black and white photography, England and France? The French countryside? The Channel? The musical score? Tommy Trinder’s cheerful songs?
3. The situating of the war, the men and the memories of World War One, their stories? Britain 1940, manufacturing? The Blitz and the planes? The issue of the machinery in France? Fred and his wanting to get it back, approaching the boss, the authorities, the difficulties in getting his passport? His arriving in France, limited language, talking to the stationmaster who reported his information to the mayor?
4. The character, his determination? His going to the village, getting the machinery? The intervention of the mayor? Anne and her information about the mayor? Finding Tommy and Jock, getting the truck, their help? Fobbing off the mayor with signing the document?
5. Their journey, the truck, needing petrol, the farmhouse and the food, seeing the lines of refugees, the children and their help? Taking them to the convent? The enemy lines, the shootings? The officer and his being Fifth Column, the confrontation about documents, the shoot-out? The escape in the truck? Seeing the turn-off to the coast, the shootings, the plane strafing them, their downing the plane, Jock being killed? Their getting to the boat, the decision of the Free French and allowing them to take the machinery at the expense of their luggage?
6. Fred, his work, being wounded? Tommy and Jock, their friendship, banter, stories about the buses in London, night school? Anne, looking for her sister, her background? Their getting to England with the machinery?
7. The atmosphere of France, the German advance, the French government, surrender? The German presence, the Fifth Column and spies, the beginning of the Resistance?
8. The comments on Britain, muddling through, stiff upper lip – but the spirit of enterprise for winning the war? The optimism for victory in the film? Justified?
