Reeling Backward: "In Which We Serve"

"In Which We Serve" starts off as an annoyingly British bit of World War II propaganda. You know the type -- lots of really fast talking, airy upper-crust accents, and stiff upper lip type of bravery.

In the first scene the H.M.S. Torrin is fatally crippled by a German dive bomber. After the captain -- played by Noel Coward, who also wrote the screenplay, co-directed, produced, wrote the musical score and, I think, personally provided all the catering -- gives the order to abandon ship, he and the other survivors give the sinking vessel three cheers.

The first half of the film is also filled with many cutaway scenes of the sailors' personal lives back home -- saying hello and goodbye to their wives, meeting soon-to-be wives, etc. They happen so rapidly that there's more smoochy time than fighting for a good long while, a when you're expecting a good ripping war movie, one feels like quoting the little kid from "The Princess Bride": "They're kissing again!"

But as the picture wore on I found myself liking it more and more. As the captain and his crew cling to a life raft awaiting rescue as German fighter planes strafe them, picking off more and more of them, they reflect on their lives aboard the Torrin, how it shaped them, and how they struggled to maintain that famously imperturbable English facade.

This was the only movie that Coward directed, reportedly at the behest of Winston Churchill himself, who was friend of the prolific playwright/composer. Coward decided he needed an able assistant to lean on, and chose a fellow named David Lean, who'd done some assistant directing and gained a reputation as a top-notch editor. Lean insisted on being listed as co-director, so "In Which We Serve" marks the first time Lean was credited as a director.

A number of young British actors have small roles in this picture, including James Donald and a very young Richard Attenborough, making his screen debut as a sailor who loses his nerve during a fight and deserts his post. Despite not receiving a screen credit, Attenborough has a considerable amount of screen time, including a great scene where the captain addresses his cowardice in front of the entire crew without naming him.

The battle scenes are a bit hammy -- there wasn't a lot of resources to put into a war picture in 1942, as one might imagine. So Coward/Lean rely upon a lot of stock footage that is only haphazardly woven together.

As I say, the second half of the film contains many very moving moments. The biggest impact is the scene in which Shorty Blake (John Mills), a low-ranking seaman, receives a letter from his wife.

She had been staying at the house of the chief petty officer when it was bombed, killing the officer's wife and mother. Blake goes up to the mess to let the chief, Hardy (Bernard Miles), know that the only members of his family were killed. His own wife was unhurt, and successfully gave birth to a baby boy. So the chief, in the midst of his own grief, congratulates the seaman for becoming a father.

What a moment -- and just one reason why I left "In Which We Serve" much more impressed than when I started.

3.5 stars

Reeling Backward: "Destination Tokyo"

There was a moment watching "Destination Tokyo" that was so cheesy, so unbelievably lame that I actually burst out laughing.

This movie came out in 1943, as the campaign against the Japanese in the Pacific was still very much a tenuous affair, and it's hard to see it today as anything other than a blatant piece of wartime propaganda.

The direction by first-timer Delmer Daves is quite ham-handed in my opinion, but he was no hack. He went on to helm many well-regarded classics, including "Dark Passage" and "3:10 to Yuma."

Daves also did the screenplay, which seems to have been dictated by the war department. The Americans are a colorful diaspora of swell guys who smile, share photos of their girls and gently tease one another in a good-natured way. There's a rakish ladies' man, a crotchety old cook, a doe-eyed kid getting his first taste of war, an atheist who finds a little faith, and so on. Stock characters, one-two-three.

The Japanese, or "Japs" as they're generally called in the movie, are faceless and impersonal. Cary Grant, as the absolutely perfect captain, has a monologue where he talks about how screwed up Japanese culture is because it's so militaristic and lacking in freedom, like the U.S. enjoys. Although as films like this make clear, during WWII we all enjoyed the freedom to think exactly the same way.

On an aside, I'm not one of those people who considers "Japs" a derogatory term. It is, after all, merely a shortening of the proper term of Japanese. Do people consider "Yanks" an insulting term for American soldiers, short for "Yankees"? Plus it's a long-standing tradition of American soldiers to give their enemies nicknames -- Germans were "Jerrys" or "Krauts," Soviets were "Commies" or "Rooskies." The most common term for our soldiers currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan is to call the general populace "hajjis," which ironically is an honorific in Muslim culture. So I don't get too worked about this sort of terminology being thrown around in war movies, since it reflects how the grunts actually talk. Although I do hold the line against blatantly racial terms, such as calling the Vietnamese "gooks."

The set-up is that Grant's sub, the Copperfin, is supposed to sneak into Tokyo Bay and put some spies ashore to gather intel for an impending bombing run. There are, of course, some battle scenes toward the end, because you can't have a submarine movie without torpedoes slamming into an enemy ship or three, plus the ubiquitous depth-charge sequence of men holding onto the bulkheads as the entire ship shakes with the pounding explosions.

The special effects are not very special, even by 1943 standards. There's a ton of grainy stock footage cut into the movie, and it stands out like a sore thumb from the rest of the production, which appears to have been shot entirely in a studio. They lifted some submarine footage from other movies, and most of the rest is done with models that look cheap and flimsy. There's one bit showing Japanese planes taking off from a carrier, and I swear it was done with children's toys.

That's not the part that got me laughing, though. The unintentionally hilarious bit comes when they first surface in the enemy bay, and Grant looks through the periscope and sees Mount Fujiyama looming on the horizon, and there's this big, sudden musical cue. It's like, "DA-DUUUUHHHH!!!" Corny enough, but then he tells his executive officer to take a look, and he grabs the periscope, and we get the exact same mountain shot again with the exact same wallop of music. "DA-DUUUUUHHHH!!!" Hilarious.

Generally I don't review classic movies that I genuinely didn't like, since I see my role as better suited to recommending old flicks people may not have seen, but I thought there were a few interesting things to say about "Destination Tokyo." It's bad enough that it could make for an entertaining rental with your friends, doing the Mystery Science Theater 3000 thing. Enjoy!

1.5 stars out of four

Review: "Defiance"

It’s a credit to Daniel Craig’s skills as an actor that we never once think of James Bond while watching the World War II drama “Defiance.”

As Tuvia Bielski, the leader of a group of renegade Jews who fled from and fought the Nazis in what today is Belarus, Craig is defiant but not cocky. There’s no trace of the brutally cold and efficient British super agent he’s portrayed in two Bond films.

With the exception of Sean Connery, none of the actors who portrayed James Bond had much of a career once their days behind a Walther PPK ended. So it’s pleasing to know that top-notch war dramas and other fare like this still lie in front of Craig, no matter how long his run as Bond.

“Defiance” is one of those “based on a true story” movie, which means the larger historical fact is accepted, but many of the details are up for debate.
In a brief Google search about the Bielski Partisans, I learn that more than 1,000 Jews built a fairly substantial settlement deep in the forests of Belarus, including a school, hospital and even a jail. They had a herd of cows to keep them fed. That’s a lot more comfy than the crude log shacks shown in the movie, with Tuvia’s people subsisting at barely above starvation level, and nearly freezing to death in the winter.

And who knows if Tuvia and his brother Zus were really rivals, a la Cain and Abel, for control of the group? But that’s the central conflict of the film, and the tension between Craig and Liev Schreiber, as Zus, is compelling.

Zus is the headstrong brother who follows the Old Testament: “Blood for blood.” He wants to take the fight to the Germans, and summarily execute any collaborators who turned Jews over to the Nazis.

But Tuvia’s goal is merely to survive, and save as many Jewish lives as he can. With the help of a few intellectual types, he wants to build a semblance of a community, even as the Germans vie for their extinction. “We may be hunted like animals, but we will not behave like animals.”

“Defiance” is directed by Edward Zwick (“Glory,” “The Last Samurai”) who co-wrote the script with Clayton Frohman based on the book by Nechama Tec. Zwick’s a master at bringing historical dramas to full-blooded life, and does so again here.

What makes Tuvia interesting is that he’s far from perfect. He makes bad judgment calls, lets a rogue element within the community go too far for too long, and overlooks some despicable behavior. (At one point, a captured German soldier is pummeled to death by a revengeful mob.) During one critical battle, he completely freezes, and it’s up to his younger brother Asael (Jamie Bell) to carry the day.

Could you imagine James Bond choking up, trembling and indecisive while troops march down on his flock? But Craig’s looking to build a character, not a star persona based on Bond. It’s one of many reasons why “Defiance” stands tall.

3.5 stars out of four