Noel Coward's take on naval warfare brings what is surely the stiffest upper lip to the silver screen. In fact every one of his features is an object lesson in emotional restraint. I am surprised he wasn't used more often.
Coward apparently co-directed and starred, and it is very much his baby. His domineering personality dominates the movie. His is a very apt representation of the upper middle-class of the day. A sort of understated arrogance, a modest but stoical assumption of superiority. You could easily see why Colonel Sito threw exasperated tantrums at the River Kwai.
Others have mentioned how this subtly manifests itself in English class hierarchy. The middle classes manage with a benign authority, whilst the working classes work - manually - and take orders. Things have changed - but not necessarily for the better; unless you're a fan of the inner cities being overwhelmed by drunken louts.
There are some very good combat sequences which, eventually, sink the destroyer, and much of the movie is shown in flash-back from the view-points of various crew members. It is well done, but not to my taste. I find it breaks up the narrative flow too much.
Throughout the movie, Coward presents an image of unflappable professionalism, and you wonder how this stratum of human society became extinct so quickly. The 1960's have a lot to answer for.
That same stoicism - though to a lesser extent - is expected of everyone else. In a particularly poignant scene one crew member learns of the death of another's wife and is obliged to tell him even as he is writing her a letter. His bereaved response is to 'just go on deck for a bit'. Back home, the ladies knit and bicker as the bombs fall, terrified but resolute.
John Mills' more regular stiff upper lip co-stars, as indeed does that of a very boyish and uncredited Richard Attenborough, who actually cracks up.
It makes an interesting comparison with the equally dated 'Went The Day Well?' in which that same British restraint is seen to dissolve in a very unbecoming bloodthirsty slaughter. And also the much more realistic 'The Cruel Sea' which, coming 11 years later in 1953, is no longer propaganda, but gritty and honest.
Still, 'In Which We Serve' is well worth a watch both as an entertaining war movie in its own right and as an educational archive, a commentary on social and moral attitudes of the time.
Coward apparently co-directed and starred, and it is very much his baby. His domineering personality dominates the movie. His is a very apt representation of the upper middle-class of the day. A sort of understated arrogance, a modest but stoical assumption of superiority. You could easily see why Colonel Sito threw exasperated tantrums at the River Kwai.
Others have mentioned how this subtly manifests itself in English class hierarchy. The middle classes manage with a benign authority, whilst the working classes work - manually - and take orders. Things have changed - but not necessarily for the better; unless you're a fan of the inner cities being overwhelmed by drunken louts.
There are some very good combat sequences which, eventually, sink the destroyer, and much of the movie is shown in flash-back from the view-points of various crew members. It is well done, but not to my taste. I find it breaks up the narrative flow too much.
Throughout the movie, Coward presents an image of unflappable professionalism, and you wonder how this stratum of human society became extinct so quickly. The 1960's have a lot to answer for.
That same stoicism - though to a lesser extent - is expected of everyone else. In a particularly poignant scene one crew member learns of the death of another's wife and is obliged to tell him even as he is writing her a letter. His bereaved response is to 'just go on deck for a bit'. Back home, the ladies knit and bicker as the bombs fall, terrified but resolute.
John Mills' more regular stiff upper lip co-stars, as indeed does that of a very boyish and uncredited Richard Attenborough, who actually cracks up.
It makes an interesting comparison with the equally dated 'Went The Day Well?' in which that same British restraint is seen to dissolve in a very unbecoming bloodthirsty slaughter. And also the much more realistic 'The Cruel Sea' which, coming 11 years later in 1953, is no longer propaganda, but gritty and honest.
Still, 'In Which We Serve' is well worth a watch both as an entertaining war movie in its own right and as an educational archive, a commentary on social and moral attitudes of the time.