GeorgeFairbrother

It's very hard to put into words just how brilliant this series is, and it would have to rank as one of the best documentary series of all time.

Unlike some later efforts on the Great War, the length of this series allows detailed exploration of some of the less well remembered campaigns. As we learn, conditions in Mesopotamia, the Balkans and the Alpine regions were just as inhuman and deadly as those in the trenches of the Western Front.

The tone of the narrative perhaps reflects some changing attitudes in Britain generally - a more questioning era as the mid 1960s approached. Made fifty years after the outbreak of war, many veterans were still alive and their recollections give the series great immediacy. Perspectives, based on first hand accounts given in interview or through surviving letters and diaries, are presented in an even handed way, from both sides, without shying away from deeply uncomfortable truths and graphic, confronting descriptions; failures in politics, and leadership; mutiny and discontent amongst the ranks, human frailties, and military and civilian deaths from enemy action, disease and starvation.

If there is one regret, it is that the series stopped rather abruptly the end of hostilities. There are some passing references to the Versailles peace conference, but it would have been wonderful to see a full concluding episode on Versailles, and the consequences.

From a time when British television period and costume drama was of a consistently high standard, Enemy at the Door, by London Weekend Television, is a real standout.

The casting is as perfect as could be. It's also very cleverly written, and acted, in that the German occupiers often seem more likeable than many of the islanders, particularly the Commandant, Richter, played superbly by Alfred Burke. The relationship between Richter and the local doctor, Martel (Bernard Horsfall) is exquisitely crafted, demonstrating the tensions arising from being enemies by circumstance, harbouring a mutual liking and respect without showing it too much, and having to oversee a functioning community in impossible circumstances.

Simon Cadell plays the obligatory SS fanatic, Reinicke with sinister understatement, and jolts us out of any complacent sympathy for the German perspective by demonstrating just what they were capable of.

It's such a brilliant and thought-provoking story, and such a shame that it did not extend beyond the two series.

Contributors to this fascinating documentary include critic and writer Gavin Lambert; and directors Alan Parker and Michael Apted. It's a very useful introduction to Lindsay Anderson, Ken Loach, Woodfall Films, Karel Reisz; Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, and the arc of post-war British Cinema.

One of the more interesting aspects is Gavin Lambert ranting against Brief Encounter (1945), a film that almost everybody seemed to rank as as the pinnacle of British cinematic achievement, for its repressed class consciousness. He suggests that no one actually got it, apart from the middle-class themselves. It was apparently previewed in a dockside cinema for a working class audience, who couldn't understand why Trevor Howard didn't just sleep with Celia Johnson and get it over with. ('When's 'e going to 'ave 'er orf?' someone reportedly called out during the screening).

For Lambert, the killing of PC George Dixon by Dirk Bogarde in The Blue Lamp (1950) seemed to be more about the desire to kill off the cinema of smug middle-class values and bring in a grittier, more working-class approach. (He was a few years too early, and George Dixon, played by Jack Warner, was resurrected for television; 432 episodes of Dixon of Dock Green which ran between 1955-1976.)

Typically British was made shortly after Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) had become a global hit. I often wonder what Gavin Lambert, who passed away in 2005, made of the the 'middle-class-ness' of the series of Richard Curtis films like Four Weddings, Notting Hill and Love Actually.

Between Alan Parker, Michael Apted and Stephen Frears at that time, there remained a general vibe of pessimism. They acknowledged the innovation of non-conformist directors like Lindsay Anderson, but looked more to Granada Television and the BBC's Wednesday Play, including Ken Loach's Cathy Come Home, as the gold standard for British drama and the ability to create something a little different reflecting the social and political changes in Britain during the 1960s. Alan Parker says that he later wrote Bugsy Malone (1976), a huge international hit, because his desire to produce movies reflecting British experiences and themes were being rejected on the grounds of being 'too parochial'. The most globally successful British directors had ended up working for a significant part of their careers in Hollywood. Stephen Frears concludes on a slightly downbeat note, commenting on the plight of a British film director by opining that, in spite of their best efforts, 'people want to see American films'.

In the years since the documentary was made, it was Stephen Frears who arguably had the most successful run with 'British' themes, and perhaps negated his own argument, with films like The Queen, Philomena, Mrs Henderson Presents, and some high quality television drama as well. Alan Parker made only three more films and chaired the BFI and UK Film Council. He passed away in July 2020. Michael Apted continued to manage a career encompassing Hollywood blockbusters (The World is Not Enough) and smaller socially conscious documentaries, with great success, including the long running 'Up' series.