The Big Blockade

When this film was being made the U boats were sinking vast amounts of allied shipping,so it was more likely at this time that Britain would be starved into submission. It is interesting to see so many stars doing cameos.

Initially called 'Siege', this elaborate Ealing propaganda feature from early in the war anticipates Disney's 'Victory Through Air Power' in it's emphasis on sabotaging German lines of supply once the Wehrmacht had lost control of the Channel after the Battle of Britain.

With a cast that ranges from Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton to Will Hay; most of the performances, friend and foe alike, are inclined to be rather broad, from Michael Redgrave as a cherubic Russian to a young Robert Morley as a particularly swivel-eyed Nazi.

All media propaganda appears shallow in hindsight, and more especially to todays enlightened cynical generations. Todays propaganda usually has to be far more subtle and careful than that of WW2 to get the government line out, but ultimately it's the same: America good, China bad etc. My line is: every country good, every country bad.

This episodic film starts with T for Tommy (keen as mustard Michael Rennie and nonchalant John Mills) flying out to night bomb Hanover, later doing it and returning. In between there's lots of various naval action and detailed earnest explanation of the how and why of the British economic blockade of Nazi Germany. We're repeatedly shown how useless and demoralised the Germans were getting under War conditions, when the Blockade was taking effect and even their ersatz products were failing them. Sadly though Hitler hung on for another savage 5 years. Lots of big and little British stars have bit parts here: Leslie Banks as a super organiser at the Minstry of Economic Warfare, Michael Redgrave as a humorous Russian in Germany, Will Hay and Bernard Miles have an intense 3 minutes fighting off the Luftwaffe from on board ship, Robert Morley as a frothing Nazi officer, Ronald Shiner has 2 seconds as a shipping clerk in a phone box, George Woodbridge as half the man he later became. And many others. Was that a woman's voice dubbed onto the man at the Bunawerke production meeting, and if so why?!

The "vicious intrigues of the Capitalist-British-Jewish Empire" are still a major concern to a lot of people today – mainly British passport holders though! This was a film made solely for 1940, and is a great window on the thought-processes of the time, if not the truth. Also it's useful to bear in mind that if the War they were all supporting in here had been lost I wouldn't be here writing this nor you reading it.