Millions Like Us (1943) User Reviews (24)

More than mere propaganda

[ella-48 · 7/10 · 3 May 2006]

To modern sensibilities the title may sound patronising, but if you're tempted to dismiss this as standard WWII propaganda fare, think again. Set among the female workforce of a heavy engineering factory, this perceptive and thoughtful screenplay explores the disruptive effect of Total War upon family life, established behavioural norms and, crucially, the class distinctions that were still dominating British society at this time. As Time Out critic Nigel Floyd put it: "Raises pertinent questions about what exactly was being fought for: the restoration of the old order, or the foundation of a new one? Intelligent entertainment at its best."

It is also unusual for the era in its unabashed portrayal of young women as actively sexual beings with a healthy, even predatory, interest in men. The sole - and glaring - exception to this model is the central heroine, Celia. Patricia Roc's portrayal of her is so overwhelmingly timid, self-effacing and prudish, it comes as little less than miraculous that she manages to bag Fred: a young Airman in the shape of Gordon Jackson. Mind you, he's no firebrand either: together, they make an infuriatingly ineffectual couple.

Far more interesting is the spiky relationship of social opposites Jennifer (Anne Crawford) - privileged/haughty/indolent - and no-nonsense factory foreman Charlie (Eric Portman). In this pair's uneasy mutual attraction and verbal sparring we see echoes of Shakespeare's Beatrice & Benedick.

N.B.: Watch out for a lovely cameo by Irene Handl as the newlyweds' landlady.

Sincere, revealing, unflinching view of England during the war

[secondtake · 8/10 · 27 July 2015]

Millions Like Us (1943)

This fast paced, light hearted and heartbreaking film about England during WWII starts great and gets better as it goes. The amazing thing, really, is that it was shot during the war and maintains a grim honesty as well as a necessary optimism. Hitler has to be defeated—but the movie makers, and all the actresses in their homespun honesty, did not know he would be.

There are some who label this purely a propaganda war film, and that the gritty lack of romanticizing is part of preparing the populace for the overwhelming nature of the problem. And somehow in an hour and a half you really sense how a country could be turned inside out. The cheerful holiday at the shore that starts the movie turns to families being broken up, women having to work in factories, and eventually news of family members never to return, killed in action.

The American documentary that comes to mind here is "Rosie the Riveter," about the enormous contributions of women in hard core industry (the poster to that shows a woman with a jackhammer). This is a fictional telling of the same idea, and it's far more enjoyable and in fact moving. (The poster for this film just shows a woman's face, with family members in the background—this is about the hearts and souls of the situation.)

I don't think of this as a true "propaganda" film for some simple reasons (all of which make me like the movie more). Foremost, it's not a government sponsored or requested movie—it's not technically in service to some greater force (as propaganda really has to be). It does of course support the home cause, the war against Hitler, and it does so in a way that the audience will pay to see. That's the bottom line here—this is a really compelling romance about real people in a real contemporary world that the audience knows very well. There are countless people to relate to, and details to recognize. The love story aspects are not developed very well, but they are overflowing with sincerity.

Wikipedia mentions that the movie was a "hit" in the USSR, which was also fighting Hitler. And the reason (to me) is simple: it's about regular people, the plight of the working class. There are few pretensions here (if any). And the filming is unusually tightly framed, by which I mean the compositions fill the frame, almost cramping the space on the screen, and it makes for a pleasure to watch, and makes for a lot to look at in every frame. And then the acting itself, without star power, is so straight forward and believable, even the slower moments make you pay attention.

A great film in a vein very very different than, say, "Casablanca" in 1942 (which some people also label as propaganda!). And it came out the same year, and in a way had the same larger context, though beyond that there is nothing in common at all. The point being that this is a terrific film on many levels once you let go of the more polished, and more immediately impressive American films of the same time.

A pleasant surprise from the past

[atasusan · 7/10 · 2 September 2008]

Yesterday evening Turner Classic Movies previewed "Millions Like Us," so it was the first time I saw the film. It may not be the best British wartime movie, but it is truly a gem in its own way. I was a child during the war, growing up in a small town in the Midwest of the U.S. Although I didn't have knowledge of what Britain was going through, I heard about it and knew how Americans reacted once we were in the war. The family interactions in "Millions Like Us" were totally believable...the family getting ready to go on holiday in the summer of 1939 and later the scene in the kitchen when Celia announces she has been called up.

My father recruited workers in Missouri and Oklahoma for an ordinance plant during the war. Most of the workers he recruited--whom he personally put on trains headed north--were women who were happy to leave those depressed areas for higher pay, excitement and contribution to the war effort. Women were glad to go to work in factories, and in 1945 they were happy to give it up for marriage and so returning soldiers could have jobs. That's just the way it was then, and one can't put a different spin on how people behaved.

I hope to see this film again.

Much of this is just like it was

[jandesimpson · 17 October 2004]

It was not until the invention of photography that we began to know what history was really like. Before that we had to rely on representations through art, writings and imaginings. But with the Crimean and American Civil War we could see the actual people who took part so that their suffering began to take on a poignancy that we never quite experienced from depictions of previous conflicts. Two dimensions were still missing that were to give records of history added immediacy, movement and sound. The first was in place to capture the cataclysmic events of World War I and the second was there to give the period of World War II a vividness that could be grasped by all future historians. As if to back up all that acreage of newsreel footage we have the feature films of the period often shown in the dead offpeak viewing times of morning and afternoon television to give us some idea of what people felt during what is rapidly becoming long ago. Although generally highly fictionalised they gave closeup substance to what in newsreels were extras in crowd scenes. As a boy who grew up in the '40's I feel equipped to vouch for those films of the period that conveyed something of the authenticity of what things were like then. I would rate "Millions Like Us" pretty highly in this respect. As a film it cannot compare with several others such as Carol Reed's "The Way Ahead" or Cavalcanti's "Went the Day Well". It lacks their sense of style, is often clumsy in continuity - the transition from peace to war is none too clearly presented - and has some unconvincing miniature mockups such as the oft repeated shot of a factory roofscape at night with toy searchlights beaming away in the background. Much of the photography has the amateurish look that afflicted much British cinema of the period, that the critic C.A. Lejeune once referred to as "like photographs from a plumbing catalogue". (Someone please let me know if I have got this wrong as I am quoting from vague memory). But in spite of these reservations it gets close to how people looked and spoke in those days, what their homes looked like and how they passed their time. It does it without recourse to caricatures of class stereotypes or sentimentality so that it remains one of the most honest films of its type. I have vivid memories of my mother working part-time in a munitions workshop just along the road from our house in Pinner. It wasn't a vast factory like the one in the film, more like a converted garage. I remember her making a part of a shell just like the ones that Patricia Roc, Anne Crawford and Megs Jenkins made. There was even a foreman figure dressed in the same type of overall as Eric Portman. For me those factory scenes in particular accurately represent a small part of our history.

War propaganda movie for Beethoven fans

[dj_kennett · 7/10 · 6 February 2001]

The basis of this film may be spine stiffening patriotism, but don't write it off on that basis alone.

The theme is about the sacrifices made by the English during WWII, and the impact of the war on their lives. So many people ended up having their lives changes in ways that they didn't like, but the demand was to carry on. The story follows one family, and particularly the eldest daughter, who leaves home to work in a regional factory, meets and marries a young pilot.

Sounds trite? The film has a surprising balance of drama and war-time humour, and will be enjoyed by Beethoven fans. He should get a credit.

Patricia Roc's Best Film

[howardmorley · 7/10 · 16 October 2009]

I rated this film 7/10 and in my opinion is Patricia Roc's best film as Celia Crowson.She gives a sensitive performance of an every day girl caught up in WWII who must do her bit for the war effort.While waiting for her assessment interview she sees a poster and fantasises being accepted into the WRAF/Wrens/Womens army corps/Land Girls or nursing assisting good looking officers, only to be asked to prosaically help out in a factory as "Mr Bevan needs a million women" to make the weapons, aeroplanes and assorted war material.

At the heavy engineering factory she finds camaraderie in similarly placed women and romance with an air gunner in the RAF Sgt.Fred Blake (a very young Gordon Jackson).With all his daughters helping the war effort in different jobs and living away from home, Celias father Mr Crowson has to fend for himself and as he has no women to care for him, he has to survive in rather hand to mouth fashion after doing his duty in the Home Guard.There is sadness in store for Celia but the film ends on a hopeful note as the producers realised many families lost members of their family but the fight must continue in 1943.This is almost the same today for forces families whose sons and daughters are helping with the NATO presence in Afghanistan.

Millions Like Us review

[JoeytheBrit · 6/10 · 16 May 2020]

Patriotic wartime flag waver about the important contribution that even the most ordinary people can make to the war effort. Comes together well after a disjointed opening reel, but never reaches any great dramatic heights. No doubt there were plenty who could identify with it in the midst of the conflict, though.

I loved this movie!

[dodochris · 10/10 · 27 February 2009]

I almost skipped this movie because I thought it was a documentary. It turned out to be a heartwarming and heartbreaking gem. My parents were kids living in Manhattan when the War broke out and my father turned 18 in 1944 and joined the Navy, telling us that he couldn't wait to get in it. They grew up in a neighborhood where everyone they knew signed up as soon as they became of age. The sacrifices that were given in order to support "our boys over there," rations, no meat and sugar, the joining of the various clubs and church organizations that sprung up to do "their share" were all very much the stories that I grew up hearing; all told without malice, but with a true sense of wanting to help, and proud to do it. "Bundles for Britain" was a saying I first heard from my father-in-law who spent 3 years in Africa with the Army. Seeing this movie gave me a genuine look (as it was filmed in 1943) of what exactly our Greatest Ally was enduring. While the ending was heartbreaking, it expressed, through a young woman's eyes, how the War effected everyone in different ways and how they changed from the beginning, middle and an end which was yet to be seen. A man I worked with told me, "I cannot describe to you the feelings of patriotism that swept through the country during the War." This movie showed the ultimate sacrifices, both willing and non-willing, that were made, and how "carrying on" is an expression that means just as much now as it did then and will serve in every aspect of our lives.

This Contented Rosie

[writers_reign · 7/10 · 18 February 2009]

At the time this must have been easy to file as painless propaganda; Launder and Gilliat start off as if attempting to emulate Noel Coward's classic This Happy Breed, we are introduced to a cut-rate Gibbons family and in particular two daughters, one a flighty Queenie clone this time called Elsie (Joy Shelton) and a more grounded Phyllis, now called Cecilia (Patricia Roc) but very soon and perhaps wisely the team realise that even the two of them are light years short of one Noel Coward so they veer off into Rosie The Riveter mode and give us a picture of Women At War which is not unpalatable by any means. There are two romances both slightly improbable, Patricia Roc snags a hopelessly inept Gordon Jackson whilst second female lead Ann Crawford winds up with Eric Portman. Seen today for the first time it failed to bore or embarrass though the England depicted is on the far side of the galaxy compared to what Blair has made of it.

The Women Behind The Men Who Kept Us All Free

[bkoganbing · 9/10 · 1 September 2008]

Millions Like Us is a tribute film to the women of the United Kingdom who were the Rosie the Riveteers of the Blessed Isle. With a much less population base to draw from, Great Britain relied far more than the United States to keep the war production running so the men could do the fighting. And being under aerial attack by the Nazis, they endured a lot more than American factory workers of any sex did.

On the American home-front, my mother freshly graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in Rochester, worked in the Bausch&Lomb factory, making all kinds of optical lenses for war production as that was all Bausch&Lomb was doing in 1943 when this film was made. Before that she worked after school there part time. Still it was a voluntary thing because she had a brother in the service. It was hardly the regimented lives you see these women leading, moved to far away location with new factories springing up in the country to avoid bombing. There's a reference in the film to Mr. Bevin's manpower needs filled by women and they are referring to Ernest Bevin, trade union leader, Labor MP, and in charge in the wartime Coalition Cabinet of such mobilization.

The film centers primarily around two women, Patricia Roc and Anne Crawford, two of the loveliest beauties ever to grace the screen for the UK. Both are transplanted from the city, Roc is one of three sisters living with their widowed father Moore Marriott who's a member of the Home Guard. She has a bittersweet romance with RAF sergeant young Gordon Jackson in his first role of notice.

Anne Crawford's a sexy thing used who's been around. She's not taking to factory work at all, but in spite of herself and in spite of himself, she's taking nicely to factory foreman Eric Portman and he, her.

Roc is best remembered by Americans in her one and only Hollywood film, the western Canyon Passage. And Crawford before she died tragically at the age of 36 made her mark across the pond as Morgan LeFay in Knights of the Round Table with Robert Taylor and Ava Gardner. Anne didn't yield an inch to Ava in the beauty department.

Today's audience will have it driven home just how much danger of invasion the United Kingdom was in when they see the direction signs on roads cut down and painted over. The better for the enemy not to be helped should he land.

This film is a historic classic, a must for today's audience to learn what and how much a free people might endure to stay free. Women like Roc and Crawford and the Millions Like {Us} them kept the men in the fight, kept Great Britain free and ultimately kept us all free.

Rather timid and uninspiring.

[alexanderdavies-99382 · 6/10 · 27 March 2018]

I had fairly high hopes for the film "Millions Like Us" as it sounded an interesting idea on paper. Sadly, the final results didn't live up to my expectations. The whole thing appears to have been filmed by a bunch of amateurs as the film lacks depth and technical ability. All those film sets that represent exteriors only rob the film of any kind of scale. In the leading role, Patricia Roc is alright but not exactly outstanding. She can't project much in the way of strength in her performance and comes across as being a whiny schoolgirl who craves attention. Although Gordon Jackson is billed second in the cast, he doesn't enter the film until half way and has little to do. The same is true of Basil Radford. He isn't part of the plot and is completely wasted. The one performance I did enjoy, was that of Moore Marriott as the father of the family in question. He is mainly in the earlier portion of this movie but he is the one to remember. Occasionally, there are flashes of mild interest. Eric Portman and Anne Crawford have a couple of tense sequences together and manage to perk the proceedings somewhat. Not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination.

Brilliant in its ordinariness

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 25 August 2013]

"Millions Like Us" is an awfully good film because it is so incredibly ordinary and simple. That's because it's goal is to provide a snapshot of what life was like for seemingly ordinary women during WWII. It follows one woman in particular, but you also see quite a bit about the other women and their lives as well--and is an invaluable documentary-like look into the WWII era.

The film begins just before WWII. Celia (Patricia Roc) and her family are living a relatively mundane and occasionally annoying lives. You don't really feel particularly connected to them or care about these folks at this portion of the film. However, after the war begins, Celia is called up for service--which she is eager to do, as she hates her mundane life with her parents. Unfortunately, she is NOT called up to the women's military service but is sent across the country to work in a war production plant. While she is very disappointed, this is a great thing to focus on, since this is the sort of job MOST British (and American) working women did during the war. I could say a lot more about what occurs to Celia, but it's better you just see it for yourself. Very well done, high on realism, charming as well as sad--well worth seeing. Plus, I loved the fact that repeatedly the film COULD have been jingoistic, extraordinary and ultra-nationalistic but chose instead the more subtle and realistic route instead.

millions like us

[mossgrymk · 6/10 · 20 March 2024]

Pretty much your standard Brit WW2 homefront pic. Best thing about it is the relative absence of patriotic gush, at least until that last scene where Patricia Roq gazes reverently skyward as bombers go to drop their payloads on the Nazis and brave, cheery singing breaks out. Until then it's fairly restrained, understated Brit stuff about women in factories, mostly. Too understated, actually. The film, perhaps because it was helmed by two directors, feels sluggish and a bit aimless as it slowly lurches from kitchen sink family drama to not very funny Naunton/Wayne bits to finally settle on Love At The Aircraft Plant. And the two love affairs, between shy Roq and shy-er Gordon Jackson and snobby Anne Crawford and pipe smoking Eric Portman, could not be duller if they tried. C plus.

How to put up with the war

[Oct · 5 October 2006]

Some of Britain's best Second World War films had equivocal origins as 'suggestions' from the Ministry of Information (i.e. propaganda) under its mischievous and mysterious chief, Brendan Bracken. 'The 49th Parallel', 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp' and 'A Matter of Life and Death', Powell's and Pressburger's productions, were all begotten by a Whitehall daddy whose name was kept off the birth certificate.

Ditto 'Millions Like Us' by another talented duo. Launder and Gilliat, well established as scriptwriters, ventured into feature direction (the only time they took a joint credit) with this episodic and fascinating study of life on the home front.

It centres on the long, dull hiatus between the Blitz and invasion scares of 1940 and the forthcoming relief of D-Day in 1944. The propaganda purpose was to rededicate civilians who were becoming bored with the seeming stalemate: Hitler no longer menacing us, we not yet able to take the war to his camp. Women were targeted for morale-boosting. The film aimed to convince these 'millions' that their conscription into factories, often seen as unglamorous by comparison with uniformed service alongside the fighting men, was essential for victory.

Thus Patricia Roc, the shy home-keeping daughter of a domineering working class widower, dreams amusingly of heroics as a nurse or airwoman, and dreads being called up for industrial work on a production line in a strange town. But she makes friends, is good at her work, marries a nice flight-sergeant in the Royal Air Force and endures the vicissitudes that follow. Other girls from widely different social backgrounds muck in and do likewise.

So much for the uplift. Rarely has a pill been so deftly sugared, however. The scene-setting in the widower's house is an index of the film's almost obsessive determination to avoid overt uplift.

Rumours of war on the wireless are exchanged for dance music on the other channel. Patriotism does not visibly improve among the younger generation once hostilities begin. One daughter is man-mad, entertaining the troops not wisely but too well; another whose husband is serving in the Western Desert is a lazy, grumbling, neglectful mother. The old dad (Moore Marriott, gruff and unrecognisable as the antic dotard of the Will Hay classics) does his bit in the Home Guard but moans inconsolably about being 'deserted' by his daughters when the country whisks them away.

At the factory a socialite drafted to turn a lathe strikes up an uneasy friendship with her gruff northern supervisor; but he tells her she'll never be better than mediocre at the work, that she might not be good enough for his proletarian family and that he isn't ready to propose to her because they may be too different. "Ooh aye, ooh aye" she mockingly replies. This brilliantly crisp little exchange seems in retrospect to predict the bombshell Labour victory of 1945, when the people of the 'People's War' gave the upper crust its quittance and the rising technocratic class took control.

Laced with verite footage of crowds at play at the seaside or entering and leaving factories, the film plays like a fictionalised version of Humphrey Jennings's 'Spare Time' and 'Listen to Britain'-- with perhaps a conscious homage in the canteen community singing of the moving final episode. And through it runs the music of Beethoven, as if to acknowledge that the enemy has his good points: here it anticipates another Jennings classic, 'A Diary for Timothy'.

The acting, especially in the home sequences, is low-key in the same manner as Lean's 'This Happy Breed'. A far cry from the stagey histrionics of pre-war British cinema, it anticipates the naturalism of TV drama. There are no big speeches or characters, just commonplace folk muddling through. The interpolation of Naunton and Wayne, whom L&G had made a crosstalk team in 'The Lady Vanishes', is the only concession to a 1930s conception of entertainment.

Miss Roc, torn between father, duty and the dream of a domestic life, is a credible symbol of young British womanhood. Recent research, contrary to earlier feminist assertions, has established that most women were both glad to escape the parental home to aid the war effort, yet were not reluctant to become housewives once the fighting men returned. In this and other ways 'Millions Like Us' has a ring of truth absent from histrionic efforts such as Selznick's 'Since You Went Away' and retrospective looks at Riveting Rosies such as Demme's 'Swing Shift'.

That such a presentation could be achieved while the dilemmas were being experienced, and under the auspices of a government fighting total war, is a huge tribute to the integrity of the British film-making community. It remains a quietly, gradually engrossing pleasure to watch.

One of my favorite movies

[clare-ella · 10/10 · 18 December 2008]

I love Millions Like Us. My parents were in England during the war and while watching this it gives me an insight into what it would have been like for them during the war. As a child I watched a lot of movies of this era on television and when I watch these movies it takes me back to a safe and happy time sitting around our old black and white TV with my sister and parents. Both my parents are deceased now and watching these lovely movies makes me feel close to them. I also loved the fashions of this era. I loved the hairstyles, even the furnishing in the houses. This movie is a must for people who enjoy romances as well as drama. It is a movie that stands up today and the acting was excellent.

What a great movie!

[niamh2245 · 8/10 · 7 November 2006]

I first came across this little gem, whilst flicking through the channels on a rainy winters day, suffering with a rather nasty strain of flu. At first i thought it was just another lame wartime romance, that the TV channel usually churns out every afternoon. But on second glance it was actually quite good! Obviously its a blatant piece of British propaganda, aimed at all the people working in factories in the war. A kind of slap on the back if you will, but what i found it to be was a fantastic slice of nostalgia and class issues of the time, which is brought together in a heart warming family drama with a slightly comical look at 1940s life.

Any book that covers this BritWar Film era

[bobthepoet-1 · 8/10 · 8 September 2008]

I was quite taken with the various Fantasy sequences of Celia. The courtship scene between the two leads captured the awkwardness of that time, I think, much better than any of,say the Andy Hardy films. I also like that this film tried to reclaim Beethoven, I think. Though some may find this movie too leisurely, I feel this film lets itself breathe, much as real life is, sometimes, leisurely. Also, we watched this after two weeks of 2008 Convention coverage, and enjoyed getting back to ideas. I wondered why this film started at the beaches in 1939 but realized there was a real payback for that.

Does anyone know if there is a good book covering the BRITWAR films (for want of a better name) including the Michael Powell, etc. films.

There just seems so much more substance in them than many of the rah rah American WWI flicks. This may just be the ones I've seen, which are basically TCM. (I'm exempting the Seventh Cross and Uncertain Glory, which are both wondrous cinema, to cite two examples.)

keeping England's hopes up

[didi-5 · 23 June 2003]

One of the many war effort films Britain churned out between 1940 and 1945, this one attempted to get women recruited into industry. We watch Celia as she gets her call-up and has to leave her family to work in a factory and stay in a hostel. There she meets college graduate Gwen, flighty Sloane Jenny, and common as brass Annie, amongst others. She grows to like her job, and also finds love with a Scots flyer, Fred Blake. But this being a semi-documentary war film, things don't end up as happily as you'd hope.

The cast is fine - Patricia Roc and Gordon Jackson headline as Celia and Fred, with Anne Crawford as Jenny and Eric Portman as down-to-earth foreman Charlie. There's also a bit for Radford and Wayne to do (an amusing scene where their travelling soldiers in a railway carriage get overrun with evacuees). Megs Jenkins also plays Gwen with some style and pathos. Patriotic hokum it may be, but I like the foregrounding it gives to the women (especially Jenny, who I quite like by the end of it) and the respect it gives to the factory girls and what they did for their country.

Brilliantly Executed and Historically Important: British Cinema at its Best

[john-ruffle · 10/10 · 1 April 2009]

This film, produced by Gainsborough Studios in London, (which was based in Islington, north London), was actually almost beyond reasonable doubt, made at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush. This may help if any film buffs are interested in trying to recognise locations. (I live very close to where these old studios used to be, so you could say I have a vested interest!) "During World War II, the tall factory chimney on the (Islington) site was considered dangerous in the event of bombing, and Gainsborough Studios were evacuated to Lime Grove for the duration of the war." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gainsborough_Pictures

Back to the film however. This is a very important British film that should be watched be everyone with any interest at all in 20th Century British history and/or cultural influences. What makes this film special is that it was made and released actually during World War II, and it has an immediacy and impact that a retrospective war film simply cannot have. It is, therefore a historical document of great value. It is also a great film. Not simple "good", but "great". The plotting is good, the acting is good... but in particular, watch for the superb "montage" sequences that typify British cinema of the era, both dramatic works and documentary.

Fortunataely, the Daily Mail gave a DVD of the film away free in early 2009, so getting hold of a copy should not be too hard for folks in reach of a British charity shop. I don't know if the DVD is region-restricted, so readers in other parts of the world may have greater difficulty getting a copy if this.

The domestic sibling rivalry in the first act of the picture is particularly telling, and the banter reveals not ancient customs, but rather, reveals just how little has changed in teenage attitudes in over 65 years - an entire generation and a half ago! Look for the elder daughter painting her toe-nails. Attitudes toward the opposite sex also don't seem dated at all, despite the so-called (and largely very regrettable) "sexual revolution" of the 1960s and beyond.

Histroical dramas are such a popular genre today. However, they all have to re-create the past from a matrix formed from present perceptions. However well executed, they can never entirely reach beyond the auteurs' perceptions of the past. This film, however, is indeed a genuine time capsule. Yes, it was a contribution to the war effort, and so some would relegate it to propaganda. But look beyond that. These WERE the times they lived in! As has been noted by another writer, the reference to the "United Nations" in the film, several years before the creation of the "United Nations" cannot possibly be a historical "mistake" (If you want to find out HOW this reference ended up in the dialogue, read the "trivea" comments!) For those in USA and other parts of the world, from the boiling hot 1920s Morris "Bulnose" Oxford open tourer to the railway arches and dance halls... this WAS how we lived in Britain in that age!

When "I Don't Mind" Means "Yes. Yes! YES!"

[ken_speckle · 8/10 · 23 March 2016]

There will be a propagandist's agenda behind any film made in and concerning WWII Britain but, where others use a shovel, 'Millions Like Us' lays it on with a velvet glove. It finds no need to make a hero of everyone in British uniform or to chest-thump over every patriotic act. Instead, it warms us to real and ordinary people – people like "us" in the factories, dance halls and Dad's Army – each playing his or her usually unremarked role during the siege of Britain.

Here is the writer/director pairing of Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder at its best. Their dialogue is wonderfully natural, and they allow their expert cast to play for authenticity, with only as much commotion and comedy as will keep us involved in their characters.

The evolution of Celia (the delightful Patricia Roc) is particular engaging: the mousy member of an otherwise colourful family becomes our romantic lead while changing believably and almost imperceptibly. With air gunner Fred (Gordon Jackson, wonderful as always) complementing her honesty and shyness, we find a couple about whom we soon care greatly. Any foreigner who would comprehend how Britons relate to each other need merely study Celia's "I don't mind" in answer to both to the most mundane questions and to the longed-for proposal of marriage: this is the level of nuance and understatement from which we come in only a couple of generations.

Bigger characters provide a light in which to notice how unassuming Celia and Fred matter to us. Jennifer (Anne Crawford) and Charlie (Eric Portman) play out a side-story, asking what role this war will have in breaking down the classes as the Great War had before it and, with strange prescience, it is the aspiring, salt-of-the-earth Charlie who will not commit to girl-about-town Jenny, foreshadowing the real-world Labour landslide two years later when the have-nots established themselves. While I could mention of any of the supporting players, I shall finish with the low-key comedy of Celia's father Jim (Moore Marriott) and the forever train-travelling double-act of Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, keeping austere Britain from being sombre.

That this story of quite ordinary people turns out to be so compelling while still delivering to the propagandist's brief is a great tribute to all involved. (8.5/10)

A good solid wartime movie

[ady123 · 8/10 · 27 March 2009]

This is one of those old wartime movies that sucks you in with reasonable casting and a nice script, all coming together to give you a very pleasant viewing experience. There are no heroes, it's all about ordinary folk who are caught up in extraordinary times, and the film projects this theme well from start to finish.

Gordon Jackson looked young enough in Whisky Galore but in this one he's almost cherubic.

There's no teeth grinding patronising propaganda, this film went straight for the jugular and basically told audiences that in the interests of survival we all have to get the heck on with it, a message suitably softened by a nice human interest script, the characters are genuinely different and interesting.

If you get the chance, this is definitely one to sit back with, relax and enjoy.

Interesting elements but still no more than a solid wartime melodrama

[bob the moo · 9 November 2006]

When World War II breaks out, one working class family (The Crowson's) find themselves playing their part in the war effort. Dad joins the war effort, elder daughter Celia signs up to serve and youngest daughter Elsie is to work in a factory. While the two daughters try to fit in where they are placed, it is Elsie that takes to the working class labour better, even thought some of her colleagues from the upper classes don't fit in as well. Meanwhile, back at home, Dad finds the battle against dishes and housework to be even more of a challenge than the battle against the Hun.

Although it is clearly a propaganda film in essence, this wartime drama is quite interesting for not being as simplistic as some of its peers. In this family drama we don't really have a message pushed that hard but are instead left to draw out own warmth from a narrative that has a surprising amount about class within it. In this regard it does produce some interesting threads although those looking back for sharp comment will not find it because this is still a melodrama with a propaganda edge. As such it is a bit plodding at times but I still quite enjoyed it for what it was although I can understand why some viewers have found it a bit dull and lacking in sharpness.

The cast are pretty good with the material. Roc and Dunn give good if unspectacular turns as the daughters while Marriott provides a working class comic relief to proceedings as the father. Te support cast features good work from Jackson, Crawford and others but the performances are not as good as I would have liked just because the script doesn't cut as deep as it could have – although perhaps understandably so.

Overall then a solid wartime melodrama with the heavy propaganda scaled back to allow for a more natural and convincing story delivered with solid turns. Aside from the touch of class politics there isn't that much to set the screen on fire but it should make good as a matinée on a weekend afternoon sort of thing.

A Great Look at a Forgotten Theatre

[christopher-morton-236-865257 · 9/10 · 14 October 2021]

When you watch a film made in 1943 you realise, they had no idea how things would play out. Or for how long. The constant fear of invasion and the Blitz (the V1 and V2s would soon start landing on the citizens of Britain.) was gone and they had to stay focused and sacrifice and fight for...how long? Amazing people. And this movie gives such a delightful view of the great leveling that took place in both world wars efforts.

The acting is well-done and typically downplayed. No overacting or supreme confidence. As an ex-pat living the UK and meeting people of this era, they were more restrained that Americans. Patricia Roc, a lovely woman, takes us on a tour of the change in her life, from mindless middle class to mutineer and lover of a simple soul, Sergeant Fred (Gordon Jackson). Her quirks and her hopes make her feel so real, and when she says "it always works out like I plan" you know her love story will soon end. The final minutes as Roc's character resumes the life briefly interrupted by marriage. How many young women who watched that would soon lose their "Fred" or just had. Handled with care and honesty that is uniquely British WW2 cinema.

The secondary stories are excellent and the acting of the whole cast is wonderful (though Americans may struggle with the varied accents of the mutineers). Anne Crawford's pursuit/pursued of Eric Portman is particularly interesting, reminding us class differences still needed their own revolution. To have seen this in 1943 and not knowing if victory would ever come, the audience would have been inspired but not given a fantasy. Too many more visits from RAF chaplains awaited.

It's great to be together

[Gazza-3 · 19 November 1998]

Millions Like Us is one of the few films made during the 2nd World War which deals with women factory workers. When Celia gets her call-up papers she wants to do something glamorous like joining the ATS. Instead she is sent to a munitions factory.

This movie is part love story and part propaganda-flic. The propaganda elements are more subtle than in many 40s films eg 'The Next of Kin'. However the life of the factory girl is glamourized. This is Celia's escape from the domestic drudgery of caring for her elderly father and allows her to find true love. Also the togetherness of the factory girls is emphasised throughout the film. The contrast between shots of Celia demure and alone that we see at the start of the film and the final scene of her as an integral part of the group is marked. Not only is munitions work vital to the war effort, we are being told, but it also provides companionship, an outlet and fulfillment for women.

A film about and for women in the workplace may sound like a step forward from the usual patriarchal portrayal of the female sex. Yet, at its heart this is a deeply conservative film. Ultimately Celia finds fulfillment with and through a man and whilst the companionship of women is important, all the female characters are searching for a husband.

However, the Directors should be applauded for having done a good job in making an enjoyable, informative propaganda film.

By the way, look out for the shots of Patricia Roc's feet when she is talking to her husband. Is this an erotic charge or fear of chilblains? Watch the movie and let us know what you think.