THE importance of “In Which We Serve,” the movie of British sailors which Noel Coward wrote, directed, produced and acted in England, is that it contains the vitality noticeably absent in most films. Coward is trying continually to keep the screen expressive. In the shipbuilding scene at the start, he gets exactly the rhythm of construction, and especially the individual’s importance in it, some of the energy, danger and craft. The important battle scene on the ship in last year’s battle at Crete brings out progressively the increasing pressure on the men, which never undermines their complex teamwork behind cannons and below the decks; the direction of action here is something any director would be proud of. When the screen is expressive in this sense, something of significant content is being shown, keyed to the pace of the action, and having the right camera angle, the right gestures and sounds to produce an experience the audience participates in, as emotion defined by movement. Even the description of sailors’ shore leave, which censorship and the established mores of popular art kept at a “naice” level, are given a kind of vitality by the right casting, timing and dialogue. There is unusual respect for the ordinariness of people’s behavior; so that they come out stronger, more admirable for being natural.
The final episode, when the captain says goodbye to the men—a scene so common everyone understands its sadness and dignity—is done without any drama at all, without any pointing up of any particular man, without condensation; the men walk by one by one, shake hands with the captain and say goodbye. The scene is extraordinarily moving because the farewell is said by each man in his own way, and because there is no dramatic elaboration. This simplicity and fidelity to the individual’s natural response is in control of most scenes. I think only thirty minutes of this year’s movies have been similarly expressive, though certain players, like Cagney, Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan and Ronald Reagan (in “Kings Row”) were that by themselves despite what happened around them.
The movie is the story of HMS Torrin, sunk at the Battle of Crete. As its survivors cling to a rubber float, each man’s thoughts are shown on the screen in a series of flashbacks. Their thoughts are conveniently, for purposes of morale, always for their good wives, their good ship just sunk and their good captain, also riding the float and thinking back. The movie goes out of its way to show what a perfect captain this Kinross—Noel Coward—is; more sensitive, more intelligent and more mature than any of his men. First comes the sailor’s Christmas dinner at home, then the chief petty officer’s, then the captain’s; and each time the conversation rises a notch in sensitivity and discernment. Though Captain Kinross certainly makes too many paternal pep talks to his men, saves too many lives and is too omniscient for a man who is only Noel Coward and not Nelson and St. Francis in one, the picture, above almost any other, is painstakingly accurate in showing the ability, strength and stake in the war of all the men.
As for the movie’s form, there are too many flashbacks of thoughts and Kinross for the raft to carry—you have a tendency to worry about what is happening on that float while you are meandering all over England inside someone’s mind. The deletion of the word “bastard” in one scene has deleted the sense of the next one: it is depressing to be more priggish than the English, to need to cut a movie they saw with equanimity. In spite of its length and overindulgence in captains, this picture is alive all over, notably in the scenes in middle-class homes where there is jawing over the dinner table and rasping mothers-in-law. It is cast the right way—or the other way around from Hollywood. A face, body and voice were found to fit each part, rather than a part to fit Thomas Mitchell, Claude Rains, etc. For the sailor’s mother, Kathleen Harrison has a bounce, a loud screech and great charm. The chief petty officer has a face as strong and honest as Abe Lincoln’s and the ring of the middle class in his voice—with corny overtones (“The whole of civilization is trembling on the edge of an abyss”). Celia Johnson has the necessary sensitivity to be the captain’s wife, which is pretty sensitive. The feeling that her voice will crack at any moment keeps most of her scenes extremely tense. Coward is too stiff even for the loftiness of this particular captain, especially in the petrified way he holds binoculars. The most compelling performance, as well as the picture’s most important one, is John Mills’s sailor, Shorty Blake, who is a small pert redhead with every sailor’s face and voice. There is an amazingly fine scene on the raft when Sailor Blake, wounded, gets his shirt cut away from the wound.
Examining the movie further, you find that Coward did some obvious things that have been wanting for a long time. He made a picture of average people in war instead of the exclusively Harper’s Bazaar set of “Mrs. Miniver.” He made a picture of war rather than cops and robbers, as were “Casablanca” and a score of others; and a picture of numbers rather than those two fun-loving soldier boys of “Wake Island.” Even his movie’s structural center is that widely reproduced and most moving news picture of this war, sailors clinging to a raft in an oily, heaving sea.
One is aware from the start of this movie that it is something new, not done before, that it has behind it artistry and intelligence and an authentic desire to make a moving picture. The content of each shot was conceived in a film sense rather than any other, and no other picture this year has equaled it. Not even nearly.
December 28, 1942