Highly Overrated But Still Good

A Major Disappointment

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Blistering performances.

Millions Like Us is directed and written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder. The film stars Patricia Roc, Anne Crawford, Eric Portman, Megs Jenkins and Gordon Jackson.One of many morale boosters made during the Second World War, Millions Like Us shows us what the war was like for women.The film follows a group of women from different backgrounds who get work in an aircraft factory during the Second World War.There's the romantic and gentle Celia(Patrica Roc), the pragmatic and fun Gwen(Megs Jenkins)and the elegant and haughty Jennifer(Anne Crawford). These women become good friends and find that they can do a mans job just as well as any man could. The women work for the no nonsense factory foreman Charlie(Eric Portman). Charlie and Jennifer are complete opposites and bicker with one another, as time goes on the pair realise they actually have feelings for one another and their growing romance is beautiful and very funny to watch, Portman and Crawford are wonderful together and their scenes together are my favourites in the entire film.Celia finds love with Fred (a very young Gordon Jackson)who's an RAF pilot.Their romance is tender and their scenes together are so sweet, there is an awkwardness and a natural feel to their interactions as both characters are falling in love for the very first time.The film is interesting, funny and moving. The characters feel real and you feel like you've actually gotten to know them and shared their experiences. I wish the film was longer than it is so we could spend more time with these characters.No doubt this film made British women realise how valuable they could be by taking on jobs left vacant by men who had left for the war. The entire cast are superb, especially Anne Crawford who is an actress who should be much better known today, she died much too soon aged 35 in 1956.

Millions Like Us (1943)This fast paced, light hearted and heartbreaking film about England during WWII starts great and gets better as it goes. The amazing thing, really, is that it was shot during the war and maintains a grim honesty as well as a necessary optimism. Hitler has to be defeated—but the movie makers, and all the actresses in their homespun honesty, did not know he would be.There are some who label this purely a propaganda war film, and that the gritty lack of romanticizing is part of preparing the populace for the overwhelming nature of the problem. And somehow in an hour and a half you really sense how a country could be turned inside out. The cheerful holiday at the shore that starts the movie turns to families being broken up, women having to work in factories, and eventually news of family members never to return, killed in action.The American documentary that comes to mind here is "Rosie the Riveter," about the enormous contributions of women in hard core industry (the poster to that shows a woman with a jackhammer). This is a fictional telling of the same idea, and it's far more enjoyable and in fact moving. (The poster for this film just shows a woman's face, with family members in the background—this is about the hearts and souls of the situation.)I don't think of this as a true "propaganda" film for some simple reasons (all of which make me like the movie more). Foremost, it's not a government sponsored or requested movie—it's not technically in service to some greater force (as propaganda really has to be). It does of course support the home cause, the war against Hitler, and it does so in a way that the audience will pay to see. That's the bottom line here—this is a really compelling romance about real people in a real contemporary world that the audience knows very well. There are countless people to relate to, and details to recognize. The love story aspects are not developed very well, but they are overflowing with sincerity.Wikipedia mentions that the movie was a "hit" in the USSR, which was also fighting Hitler. And the reason (to me) is simple: it's about regular people, the plight of the working class. There are few pretensions here (if any). And the filming is unusually tightly framed, by which I mean the compositions fill the frame, almost cramping the space on the screen, and it makes for a pleasure to watch, and makes for a lot to look at in every frame. And then the acting itself, without star power, is so straight forward and believable, even the slower moments make you pay attention.A great film in a vein very very different than, say, "Casablanca" in 1942 (which some people also label as propaganda!). And it came out the same year, and in a way had the same larger context, though beyond that there is nothing in common at all. The point being that this is a terrific film on many levels once you let go of the more polished, and more immediately impressive American films of the same time.

At the time this must have been easy to file as painless propaganda; Launder and Gilliat start off as if attempting to emulate Noel Coward's classic This Happy Breed, we are introduced to a cut-rate Gibbons family and in particular two daughters, one a flighty Queenie clone this time called Elsie (Joy Shelton) and a more grounded Phyllis, now called Cecilia (Patricia Roc) but very soon and perhaps wisely the team realise that even the two of them are light years short of one Noel Coward so they veer off into Rosie The Riveter mode and give us a picture of Women At War which is not unpalatable by any means. There are two romances both slightly improbable, Patricia Roc snags a hopelessly inept Gordon Jackson whilst second female lead Ann Crawford winds up with Eric Portman. Seen today for the first time it failed to bore or embarrass though the England depicted is on the far side of the galaxy compared to what Blair has made of it.

Millions Like Us is one of the few films made during the 2nd World War which deals with women factory workers. When Celia gets her call-up papers she wants to do something glamorous like joining the ATS. Instead she is sent to a munitions factory.This movie is part love story and part propaganda-flic. The propaganda elements are more subtle than in many 40s films eg 'The Next of Kin'. However the life of the factory girl is glamourized. This is Celia's escape from the domestic drudgery of caring for her elderly father and allows her to find true love. Also the togetherness of the factory girls is emphasised throughout the film. The contrast between shots of Celia demure and alone that we see at the start of the film and the final scene of her as an integral part of the group is marked. Not only is munitions work vital to the war effort, we are being told, but it also provides companionship, an outlet and fulfillment for women.A film about and for women in the workplace may sound like a step forward from the usual patriarchal portrayal of the female sex. Yet, at its heart this is a deeply conservative film. Ultimately Celia finds fulfillment with and through a man and whilst the companionship of women is important, all the female characters are searching for a husband.However, the Directors should be applauded for having done a good job in making an enjoyable, informative propaganda film.By the way, look out for the shots of Patricia Roc's feet when she is talking to her husband. Is this an erotic charge or fear of chilblains? Watch the movie and let us know what you think.