In Which We Serve
Tags: flashback

Plot synopsis:
The film opens with the narration: "This is the story of a ship" and the images of shipbuilding in a British dockyard. The action then moves forward in time showing the ship, HMS Torrin, engaging German transports in a night-time engagement during the Battle of Crete in 1941. However, when dawn breaks, the destroyer comes under aerial attack from German bombers.
Eventually the destroyer receives a critical hit following a low-level pass. The crew abandon ship as it rapidly capsizes. Some of the officers and ratings manage to find a Carley float as the survivors are intermittently strafed by passing German planes. From here, the story is told in flashback using the memories of the men on the float. The first person to reveal his thoughts is Captain Kinross (Coward), who recalls the summer of 1939 when the Royal Naval destroyer HMS Torrin is being rushed into commission as the possibility of war becomes a near certainty.
The ship spends a relatively quiet Christmas in the north of Scotland during the Phoney War. But by 1940, the Torrin is taking part in a naval battle off the coast of Norway. During the action, a young terrified sailor (Attenborough) leaves his station while another rating (Mills) returns to work his gun after its crew is knocked unconscious by a torpedo strike. The damaged Torrin is towed back to port, all the time being harried by dive-bombers.
Safely back in harbour, Captain Kinross tells the assembled ship's company that during the battle nearly all the crew performed as he would expect; however one man didn't. But he tells everyone present they may be surprised to know that he let him off with a caution as he feels as Captain he failed to make them understand their duty.
Returning to the present, the float survivors watch the capsized Torrin take on water as the badly damaged ship slowly sinks. The raft is again strafed by German planes. Some men are killed, and "Shorty" Blake (Mills) is wounded. This leads to a flashback in which Blake remembers how he met his wife-to-be, Freda, on a train while on leave. It is also revealed, she is related to the Torrin's affable Chief Petty Officer Hardy (Miles). When both men return to sea, Freda moves in with CPO Hardy's wife and mother-in-law.
The Torrin participates in the Dunkirk evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force, (portrayed in the film by the 5th Battalion of the Coldstream Guards). Meanwhile, the nightly Blitz takes its toll on British towns. Blake soon gets a letter from home to say that Freda has given birth to his son during one raid. But the letter also says that Hardy's wife and mother-in-law were killed in the same attack. Stoically he goes to the Petty Officers' Mess to tell Hardy (who is in the process of writing a letter home) the bad news.
The flashback ends as the survivors on the life raft watch the capsized Torrin finally sink. Captain Kinross leads a final "three cheers" for the Torrin when suddenly another passing German plane rakes the raft with machine gun fire, killing and wounding more men. A British destroyer soon appears and begins rescuing the men. On board, Captain Kinross talks to the survivors and collects addresses from the dying. He tells the young man who once deserted his post that he will write and tell his parents that they can be proud that he did his duty; the critically injured young man smiles and dies peacefully. Relatives soon receive telegrams informing them about the fate of their loved ones.
Captain Kinross and the 90 surviving members of the crew are taken to Alexandria in Egypt. Wearing a mixture of odd clothing and standing in a military depot, Captain Kinross tells them that although they lost their ship and many friends, who now "lie together in fifteen-hundred fathoms", he notes that these losses should inspire them to fight even harder in the battles to come. The ship's company is then told they are to be broken up and sent as replacements to other ships that have lost men. Captain Kinross then shakes hands with all the ratings as they leave the depot. When the last man goes, the emotionally tired captain turns to his remaining officers, silently acknowledges them before walking away.
An epilogue then concludes: bigger and stronger ships are being launched to avenge the Torrin; Britain is an island nation with a proud, indefatigable people; Captain Kinross is now in command of a battleship. Its massive main guns fire against the enemy.

Review: The relationships between the men on HMS Torrin and the lives they lead at sea and at home (told through flashbacks) portray a wartime society ordered by class and intentionally defined by the traditional British virtues of duty and sacrifice.
Outdated though this vision may be - part of a world left far behind through post-war socio-economic development and emancipation - it is nevertheless a compelling and entirely consistent vision which ensures the film retains a certain appeal to audiences even today and is a major reason why it can still be so highly rated as a piece of British cinema history..
The story of British Navy Destroyer HMS Torrin, told in flashback by the surviving crew members as they await rescue in the Mediterranean, the ship having been sunk during a battle.
This film was something of a tour-de-force for Noel Coward, as he produced, wrote and co-directed it (with a young David Lean).
It obviously seems dated in some respects - the dialogue is quite clipped and stilted at times - but is saved by professional work all round and a clutch of strong performances, namely by Noel Coward himself, John Mills and Bernard Miles.
Hasn't dated one little bit since it was made in 1942.Actor/Director (with help from David Lean) Coward made the filming as much like reality as possible and the scenes in the tank almost resulted in the drowning of several of the actors - including Coward himself!If you haven't seen it you really should because it belongs in the highest rank of world cinema..
The story revolves around the Life and Sinking of a Royal Naval Destroyer HMS Torin, and the gallant men that served on her.Loosly based on the story of HMS Kelly a real Royal Navy Destroyer commanded by Lord Louis Mountbatten, it takes us back to the days when Britannia really did rule the waves.The ship is sunk during the battle of Crete, and the main characters of the movie are then clinging to the life raft awaiting rescue.
The film is a combination of flashbacks showing the effect that War has on the sailors and their families back home.Sir Noel Coward is brilliant as the upper class Captain that commands the ship and the respect of his crew.
Sir Bernard Miles is equally as pleasing as the middle class Petty Officer, and Sir John Mills gives a movie-making performance representing the majority of the Royal Navy, as the ordinary every day working class able seaman.I've noticed that a lot of reviews of this movie talk of the class divide between the three characters, but I disagree entirely.
Sir David Lean's directorial debut, (under the watchful eye of Coward), is something to be proud of, and it's no surprise they were to team again.One the best moments of this movie is when the crew of the Torin rescue Coldstream Guardsmen from the bloody beaches of Dunkirk.
leaving John Mills to say "If I weren't so tired I'd give 'em a cheer......and that's no error" Incredible.This is a triumph for War time movie making and remains a milestone in British Cinema which also includes Lord Attenborough's movie debut.This Movie never fails to bring a lump to my throat.
There's a lot good in In Which We Serve, but if you are expecting Coward bon mots, skip this film.Whatever else Coward was, he was one patriotic British citizen who loved his country and wanted to do his bit in World War II.
The sequences in which Coward's ship is sunk and the actions of Coward and the crew hews pretty close to what happened to Mountbatten and the men of the Kelly.While we Coward and his survivors clinging to life rafts and bits of wreckage, the audience gets a series of flashbacks revolving around three men, Coward, CPO Bernard Miles, and Seaman John Mills.
There are no John Waynes or Errol Flynns on this ship.The acting is extremely good, although Noel Coward seems a little stiff and uncomfortable in his leading role.
Naval men watch their ship sink as they cling to a raft and remember the lives they left in "In Which We Serve," a 1942 film starring Noel Coward, John Mills, Celia Johnson, and Bernard Miles.
Coward obviously had no problems attracting the best actors to the film, as every person fits his or her role perfectly.Like many classics, despite changes in film technique, the core story remains compelling, especially today with so many soldiers in Iraq.
In Which We Serve (1942)A curiously different and really moving film about World War II, directed by two top British talents, Noel Coward and David Lean.
The war in 1942 was not looking great for the Brits.Coward co-directs but also is the leading man, and he's an established actor from both film and stage at this point.
The lives of the different men interconnect in amazing ways, in good times and during tragedy at sea.David Lean and Noel Coward shared the directorial duty in a film that is one of the best ones of the genre.
The unity shown in the making of the film must have come from those trying days during the war days in England.The large ensemble cast put together for the film showcases some of the best talent of the British screen like no other of its kind.
His wife is played by Celia Johnson, one of the best actresses of her generation, and who later would go to collaborate with Mr. Coward in what must be, perhaps, one of the best achievements in the English cinema, "Brief Encounter".In supporting roles we see a young John Mills playing Shorty Blake.
Kay Walsh, Michael Wilding, Daniel Massey seen as a young boy, and the baby Juliet Mills also appear in the film."In Which We Serve" is still a pleasure to watch because it shows the valor of the men called to defend their country..
A flag waver for the British navy (the story of a ship') in which we meet rough representatives of the three classes (upper, middle, working) brought together by circumstance and service.The working classes are represented by John Mills and Kay Walsh, who marry quietly during a leave and go to their honeymoon on a train.
In Which We Serve is also a sprawling ensemble piece, with numerous interwoven narratives, and to make it comprehensible and engaging it needs well-defined characters whom the audience can immediately get to grips with, and cannot be mistaken for one another.Lean was already known in the British film industry as the best editor in town, and his work on such important British films as Pygmalion and 49th Parallel show his taste for "hard" cuts which jolt the audience with a sudden change in focus or pace, for example cutting to a moving object.
Best of the bunch however is Celia Johnson, a completely natural performer, capable of making us forget we are watching an actress and believing we are witnessing the life of a real person.As a morale-booster, In Which We Serve was popular and effective, but it was also part of an upward trend in the scope and prestige of the British motion picture.
Of course this is not to say that it avoids falling into the usual genre traps because, despite all its attempts at high standards, it still reinforces all the clichés and, viewed today, often comes over as simplistic and occasionally a bit patronising in its portrayal of servicemen, people and the class structure.The story itself is a nice try at an ensemble cast delivering all different stories as a way of looking at the struggles, sacrifices, hopes, losses and victories, showing us how the good IL' British keep together and find their blitz spirit in all situations.
Of course, this was all a long time ago, and it may be I'm watching the film with the eyes of someone sitting in a time that has seen Britain lose that aspect of life, but this all comes over as rather stiff, lacking emotion and not as engaging as such a story really should have been.
First time watching In Which We Serve, it struck me as a very good film, though with some draggy moments in the first half, some of the clipped dialogue seeming stilted and Noël Coward seemed a little stiff at first.
Coward's initial stiffness struck me on re-watch as something that suited the character, who was written as quite dour at first anyway, and it is a very authoritative, caring and moving lead performance on the whole, his HMS Torin speech is a classic and if the lower lip doesn't tremble (or more) during his incredibly emotional farewell I'm not sure what will.Coward is wonderfully supported by the rest of the cast, especially from the shimmering film debut of Celia Johnson, a sympathetic Bernard Miles and John Mills in one of his better Lean film performances.
His co-direction with Lean works just fine, with his more nuanced style contrasting well with Lean's more vivid action style.In Which We Serve is beautifully filmed in sumptuous black and white, the Royal Navy details and settings being more than convincing, and Coward also provides a stirring and hauntingly beautiful music score.
David Lean and Noel Coward co-directed "In Which We Serve" which, we are told, is 'the story of a ship' and which begins in fine documentary fashion before getting down to the serious business of jingoism and what Coward could do to help the war effort, (remember this was only 1942 and the War was still at its height).
It is, of course, incredibly British, ('cocoa, sir), and with nary a quiver of its stiff upper lip but it's also deeply moving and beautifully made, a classic in fact, with some splendidly realistic action sequences, (Ronald Neame's superb cinematography must take a lot of the credit).Coward produced the picture, wrote it, composed the score as well as co-directing and taking the lead and the Academy thought enough of him to give him an honory Oscar.
This movie is all about the HMS Torrin, its story its told my its crew members in a flashback style whilst they wait to be rescued in the Mediterranean Sea post sinking of the ship.This was a big deal for Noel Coward because he had three roles, producer, writer and co-director.
It would had hurt him to see the working classes get a taste of power but it also shows how he fundamentally failed to understand the attitude of the British people after all they had endured through the second world war.This is a flag waving propaganda film that Coward co-directed with David Lean.
Mountbatten was another elitist toff who after the war, royally messed up as the last viceroy of India.In Which We Serve tells the story of several crew members of the Torrin's personal lives in flashback after it has been sunk in the Mediterranean.
Written and co-directed (with David Lean) by Noel Coward, who also stars as Captain Kinross, the film grew out of Coward's desire to contribute to the war effort.
The purpose of this movie from 1942 was to raise the morale on the British home front during World War II and it achieves this objective in a superb piece of film-making that drew on the virtues that made Britain one of the toughest and most courageous countries in history.
In a series of flashbacks after a British naval ship is attacked, the movie reinforces the importance of these virtues and of each man and woman to the war effort.David Lean made his directorial debut under the guidance of Noel Coward, one of the deans of British stage and screen.
The closing chapter: At the end of the film 'In Which We Serve'the crew of the Torrin ship line up in a hanger after being rescued from the sea and one by one they each shake hands with Noel Coward the captain before leaving to go to new ships.
Noel Coward's IN WHICH WE SERVE is a superior treatment of war--at sea and at home--as seen from the viewpoint of various crew members.NOEL COWARD plays the Captain of the ill-fated destroyer; JOHN MILLS is a young sailor recalling his romance with a nice British gal, KAY WALSH; CELIA JOHNSON is Coward's Navy wife who knows the ship is the foremost thing in her husband's life, but she bravely salutes it at a Christmas party; and the large male supporting cast includes MICHAEL WILDING, a very young RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH as a troubled sailor and BERNARD MILES.The homefront scenes are reminiscent of a veddy, veddy British version of SINCE YOU WENT AWAY (especially the romance between Kay Walsh and John Mills).
Based mostly on the experiences of Lord Mountbatten on HMS Kelly, IN WHICH WE SERVE is a classic British flag-waver from 1943, attesting to the bravery and sheer grit of captain and crew as they struggle to survive after their ship has been sunk by a German torpedo.
Structured as a series of flashbacks, the narrative focuses on different members of the crew from different socio-economic backgrounds: the bourgeois Captain Kinross (Noel Coward) leading a comfortable family life with his wife (Celia Johnson), and two children (Daniel Massey, Ann Stephens); the middle-class Chief Petty Officer Hardy (Bernard Miles), living with his wife (Joyce Carey) and her mother; and the working-class Ordinary Seaman Blake (John Mills) living in a modest terraced house with his family.
Noel Coward, John Mills and Richard Attenborough are among the crew, and as I said, you KNOW they will survive because they are big-time actors (though at this point, Mills and Attenborough were at the beginning of their film careers).
Noel Coward is captain of HMS Torrin, a British Navy destroyer, and he expects his crew to obey his philosophy.
The story is told in flashbacks as survivors cling to a dinghy after HMS Torrin is sunk.It's a propaganda film that is meant to rouse feelings of discipline and dedication to country in time of war.
My primary reason for wanting to see the film is David Lean's directorial debut, having co-directed it with Coward.While this is a competent film and enjoyable to watch, it shows the British as somewhat one dimensional characters.
The enlisted seaman seem to be the only characters that have any real affection for their ship or their spouses, but this is also shown in the light of them being 'lower-class' individuals, fit only to be ordered around and to do physical labor.While watching the film I noticed a small cameo by a very young Richard Attenborough, who is not named in the credits.This film epitomizes the concept of the British 'stiff upper lip' and their sheer determination to prevail in the face of overwhelming odds.
Her crew are drawn together from many different vessels, and then the few survivors dispersed; but in one of the most famous sequences -- the three parallel Christmas parties -- we are shown the bond that every one of them, from the captain to the petty officers to the ordinary seamen, feels for his ship.The film deliberately sets out to depict its characters as a microcosm of English society, from the smoke-filled third class compartment to the Great Western dining car with its dubious "railway fish" (some things never change!), and as a result it is a fascinating social document.
With a common social understanding, working together, as the title of Noël Coward's and David Lean's "In Which We Serve" suggests...The film, one of the finest wartime dramas to come out of Britain, tells the story of an English destroyer HMS Torrin, sunk in the Mediterranean Sea by the Germans, during the Battle of Crete...As commander and crew keep close to the life raft, the screen fades gradually to take us back in active to the commission of the ship...By concentrating on each member of the crew a different memory is relieved, and each flashback advances the story of the life of the ship and the men who served on her...It is a magnificent film about courage and dedication, devotion and sacrifice...
Noel Coward and Terence Rattigan, two homosexuals, produced between them (The Way To The Stars and this film) THE two definitive British films of World War Two which must surely give students or irony pause.
With hindsight it is possible to identify Coward 'signatures' - in This Happy Breed John Mills was the sailor next door in love with the flighty Kay Walsh who he lost only to find again; this time around Walsh is more grounded, they meet, fall in love and marry; Joyce Carey, the tyrant of the Tea Room in Brief Encounter, is here portrayed far more sympathetically as the wife of Petty Officer Bernard Miles and her ongoing war with her mother replicates that of Celia Johnson in This Happy Breed, etc - that only enhance the watching experience.
Noel Coward,a witty and urbane man,was friends with Louis Mountbatten.Mr Coward,a long-time admirer of all things naval,was commissioned to write a story loosely based on the loss of Mountbatten's ship.In a peculiarly British way it was considered that a film about the Royal Navy losing an encounter at sea would be good propaganda.It was also considered a good idea to have Mr Coward play the part of the ship's captain.Amang the many qualities needed to command a fighting ship,the ability to speak in a very clipped voice and sing sophisticated "point" songs does not come very high up the list at Admiralty House,or at least one would hope not.A captain must earn and retain the respect of the wardroom and the lower deck alike.
Directed by David Lean (The Bride on the River Kwai) and Noel Coward (also starring), both making their directorial debuts, this is quite a good British war film.
It is a film that combines war ship battles and character flashbacks.