THIS HAPPY BREED BY NOEL COWARD

THIS HAPPY BREED by Noel COWARD

The 1944 film has a more obvious propaganda purpose compared to Coward’s later films.  A portrait of a working class family in the London suburbs between 1919 and 1939, it begins and ends with the theme ‘London Pride,’ one of Coward’s favourite morale-boosters of World War Two.  It has occasional sententious moments, often involving Robert Newton, the paterfamilias, referring to the strength of the family and how it sustains itself, whatever happens to it.  And goodness; what a lot happens: marriages, births and deaths, one of the children absconding without telling the parents, the neighbour leaving for the British coast, plus the usual internal family squabbles that involve everyone.  Yet Newton has the time to make a comment about the British capacity for doing things in their own time, unpestered by others.  This might seem maddening, but the British do get things done, unlike members of other (unnamed) races.

Yet the film is not necessarily interesting on account of such statements.  It is a testament to the strength of one family to survive everything that is thrown at it, whether domestic or political, due to its inner strength.  None of its members are especially ambitious, except for daughter Queenie (Kay Walsh), whose social ambitions drive her out of the house without telling her parents.  Her mother Ethel (Celia Johnson) doesn’t want her name mentioned in the house any more, but the two are reconciled when Queenie returns to marry her childhood sweetheart Billy (John Mills), son of neighbour Bob (Stanley Holloway). The family remains the stable rock that doesn’t change, even while times do.

This might seem old-fashioned, were it not for the link between the family and Great Britain as a whole.  One sequence shows them crowded round the radio, as they listen to the announcement of the death of George V in 1935, and subsequently they all join the crowds in filing silently past the royal coffin.  This is why the country remains stable, despite the sufferings, food shortages, strikes and the like: it sticks together through thick and thin.  The link between family and country is reinforced at the film’s beginning, with lengthy pans of the London suburban landscape showing small houses toe to toe, with families in each of them going about their daily business.  There is a certain degree of historical truth in this: but THIS HAPPY BREED makes no mention of war damage, or the fact that many of these trim suburbs were destroyed by German bombs.

Maybe this was deliberate, as director David Lean consciously tries to recreate the atmosphere of prewar Britain for a 1944 release, to remind people that what existed prior to 1939 could easily be recovered, if the people were willing to work at it.  The stability of the family isn’t just due to houses and gardens, or ordered suburbs, but the people who inhabit them.  They have their occasional losses of temper, or moments of impetuosity, but they are fundamentally good-natured to one another and look our for one another in moments of crisis.

This is what gives the film its lasting charm.  The situations might be very different today, but the characters have a kind of innocence as well as an integrity that keeps them going.  Frank Gibbons’ (Robert Newton’s) determination to spend at least some time during the week cultivating his garden contrasts with Celia Johnson’s dedication to housework: not because they have to, but rather because they realise that’s what families do.   Work or leisure-time does not occupy the whole time.  Frank has to tell his son Reg (John Blythe) off, ending the talk with some sound advice.  Ethel (Johnson) has to offer motherly comfort to at least two of her daughters, as well as swallowing humble pie so as to readmit Queenie into the family.  And the family has to learn how to cope with the unexpected death of Reg and his wife Vi (Eileen Erskine), as well as complaining Granny Mrs. Flint (Amy Veness).

The actors handle these moments with such sensitivity that it’s hard not to start crying oneself.  This is what transhistoricity truly means: the ability to be able to communicate across time and space.