An Exercise In Nonsense

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

I saw this movie on TV many years ago on a local late-night movie program which followed the 11pm news. It was during the week between Christmas and New Years, so my mind was occupied with other matters so all I really remembered was that it starred John Mills and that it took place over the span of several decades, but something about the movie stuck in my head. Thanks to IMDb I was able to identify it as "So Well Remembered", and that it was out on DVD.John Mills is great as George Boswell, reform-minded newspaper editor and member of the town council in a bleak Lancashire mill town, who falls in love with the daughter of the town pariah, a corrupt industrialist.Based on a James Hilton (Lost Horizon) novel, the film has it's share of soap opera-like moments, but enough of its literary heritage to tell a highly compelling story. The story also has a certain relevance today with the political and social elements, and it is a little depressing to see how things have not changed since 1919.

I bought this film on eBay.co.uk and its cover revealed it is distributed by "Onyx Media International" under the banner of "2 Classic British Movies", the other being "The Rakes Progress" with Rex Harrison, Lilli Palmer, Griffith Jones & Jean Kent.But to "So Well Remembered", like other reviewers I was mildly surprised that I had not heard of this film until now, especially as I am a connoisseur of 1940s films.In 1947 Britain was almost bankrupted by the second world war and only managed to repay its war debt in 2006.For this reason producers who wanted higher production values sometimes had to compromise on cast and market films like this to the U.S.(our biggest creditor), which had the money, to market to American audiences.For this reason and despite a plethora of British acting talent available at the time, they cast Martha Scott (born in Missouri) to play the Cheshire born wife Olivia of John Mills (George Boswell).It is hard enough for even English actresses to get the Lancastrian/Cheshire intonation right and in "Coronation Street" the long running (50 years!) British soap, they tend to cast authentic Lancashire born actresses for the sake of social realism.By the same token casting Richard Carlson as Charles Winslow, I found his American speech patterns destroyed what should have been a realistic story set in a grim northern English setting.Those two actors (not their fault just circumstances) completely destroyed the illusion, making the story seem almost surreal.Another reviewer points out that the fictitious town of "Browdley" was actually shot on location in Macclesfield, now considered an affluent enclave of Cheshire (which borders Lancashire).It is where rich Lancastrians tend to gravitate e.g. premiership footballers.I was pleased to see Patricia Roc (Julie Morgan) and Trevor Howard (Dr.Richard Whiteside) who gave top support billing to Mills & Scott.Also the ever reliable Beatrice Varley (Annie) whose favourite role of mine was as "Aunt Prowd" in "Gone to Earth" (1949).Even the minor actors got my attention, there was Roddy Hughes ("Quiet Wedding" 1941 and "A Girl Must Live" 1939") and Ivor Barnard popping up playing "Spivey" the type setter.Ivor appeared most notably in David Lean's "Great Expectations"(1946) playing "Wemmick" who was "Jaggers" clerk, again with John Mills as Pip.There was a social message in the film which portrayed the abject poverty and disease prevalent amongst the poor between the two world wars.Major improvements to housing and health were urgently required and the pacifist British Governments of the 20s & 30s put this as paramount in their social order (but ignored the threat from Germany).I marked this film 6/10.

The film was the big cinematic claim to fame of my home town of Macclesfield, Cheshire, England where the exteriors were shot.It portrays the often grim reality of life in a northern mill town when poverty and disease tool a grim toll and a Doctor (played by Trevor Howard) could be a really vital link between life and death contrasted with the ambitious figure of Mills as the would be Mayor. The film starts with him as Mayor looking back on his life, so a lot of it is therefore a flash back.I won't spoil the story. The acting shows the young and developing talents of both Mills and Howard before they were the legends they were to become.Following its rediscovery it has been released on video. I don't think it has yet been released on DVD.

This is a picture of intelligence and substance that deserves to be better known. It includes exceptional performances by two of the finest actors of our time, John Mills and Trevor Howard. Flawed, perhaps, by a less-than-clear rendering of the Olivia Channing character (whose attitudes, emotions and actions lack consistency), it is nevertheless deeply moving. In any number of scenes director Edward Dmytryk reveals the strong influence of Orson Welles' narrative and cinematic methods in "Citizen Kane." Such can only add to a film's effectiveness, even if less than totally original.