A Letter from Ulster

Two brothers from Minnesota are soldiers training in Northern Ireland. They never get letters from home. Their commanding officer learns they don't write home, so he orders the two of them to write a ten-page letter.

Terence Young wrote this 34-minute minute under his full name of Sean Terence Young; William MacQuitty -- best remembered as the producer of A Night To Remember -- produced it, and Brian Desmond Hurst directed it. It's one of the many propaganda films produced by the Crown Film Unit. It is offered with an air of respectful diffidence, of shy, good people, who might never have met save for extraordinary circumstances.

More than 300,000 American troops trained in Northern Ireland during the Second World War, and as the two brothers narrate their letter, and we see the vignettes of training, camp life, and interactions with the locals, we see everyone's wariness, at the same time we see their good will, whether it's the Yankees listening respectfully toa tenor singing "Rose of Tralee", loading a leaving British soldier's kit, unasked, with American cigarettes, a farm family offering tank crews fresh milk and tea, or a local chorus singing "Home on the Range." There's a sense of awkwardness to the film that reflects strangers trying to behave well that is very endearing.