David Lean directed This Happy Breed, drama shot in Technicolor about a suburban London family, starring Robert Newton, Celia Johnson, Stanley Holloway and John Mills.
Grade: B+
The title is a phrase from John of Gaunt’s monologue in Act II, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Richard II.
In 1942, Lean and Coward co-directed In Which We Serve. This Happy Breed marked Lean’s solo directorial debut. He and Coward later teamed for Brief Encounter and Blithe Spirit.
The screenplay by Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan and Ronald Neame is based on the 1939 play “This Happy Breed,” by Noël Coward, about the ebb and flow of events (domestic and historical) during the 20 inter-war years.
Set during the postwar era of the 1920s, the tale depicts the looming of another war and the necessary passing of the torch from one generation to the next.
Domestic triumphs and tragedies play against technological and cultural changes like the coming of household radio and talking pictures.
Laurence Olivier offers narration over a moving aerial shot of 1919 London: “After four long years of war, the men are coming home. Hundreds and hundreds of houses are becoming homes once more.”
The film then focuses on the Gibbons family, after they settle in in South London, Frank, his wife Ethel, their three children Reg, Vi and Queenie, his widowed sister Sylvia and Ethel’s mother.
Frank is delighted that his next-door neighbor is Bob Mitchell, a friend from army days. Frank finds employment with a travel agency, arranging tours of Western Front battlefields.
As the children grow up and the country adapts to peacetime, the family attend the British Empire Exhibition held at Wembley in 1924 and acquire their first radio for Christmas 1925.
During the General Strike of 1926 (in which Frank and Bob volunteer as driver and conductor of a bus), Reg is injured in a brawl. Vi blames Sam, her socialist boyfriend, who had brought her brother to the area, but eventually her anger dissipates and she marries him.
In 1928, Queenie wins a Charleston dance contest. In 1929 Sam and Vi attend one of the new talking pictures, The Broadway Melody, at the cinema. News of the electoral rise of the German Nazi Party begins to appear in newspapers.[a] Later, Reg marries his girlfriend Phyl. Bob’s son, Billy, who has joined the Royal Navy, proposes to Queenie. She turns him down, electing instead to run off with a married man. Her mother Ethel vows never to forgive her. Later, on coming home from a drunken 1931 regimental reunion, Bob expresses his faith in the League of Nations, scoffing at Frank’s concerns about the recent Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
As time passes, the family mourn the death of Reg and Phyl in car crash, Ethel’s mother dies of pneumonia after infuenza, and Aunt Sylvia discovers spiritualism. Later, in Hyde Park, Frank and Ethel witness a member of the British Union of Fascists stirring up anti-Semitic sentiment.
Stanley Baldwin wins the 1935 UK general election. In January 1936, King George V dies; Frank and Ethel join the crowds filing past his coffin. King Edward VIII abdicates 11 months later.
In 1938, Neville Chamberlain returns from Munich, celebrating “peace in our time” with a cheering crowd outside 10 Downing Street.
Abandoned by her lover, Queenie and another woman had opened a tearoom in France to make ends meet. Billy further reveals he has married Queenie and brought her back to London.
With a new war looming despite the Agreement, Queenie leaves her baby with her parents and sails to join her husband in Singapore.
Faced with empty nest, Frank and Ethel leave their house for a flat with Billy and Queenie’s son.
The film closes with a tracking shot of 1939 London.
Lean insisted on filming This Happy Breed on three-strip Technicolor stock, although the film was difficult to acquire in Britain during the war.
The breathtaking opening sequence, an aerial view of London, from the Thames and across the rooftops, down to the back door of one particular house and right through it to the front door”, narrated by Laurence Olivier. “Lean was employed one of his trademark devices of ‘leaking’ one scene into another – a new scene begins before the previous one has faded away. He uses sound to anticipate the next scene, keeping the audience in a constant state of expectation.
One sequence uses sound quite brilliantly. When Reg and his wife are killed in a car crash, Vi goes out into the garden to find Frank and Ethel and tell them the awful news. The camera stays in the living room while the radio plays a loud dance tune, and the happy sound of children playing outside is heard. Eventually Frank and Ethel come into the frame, from the garden, the soundtrack making a poignant counterpoint to their silent grief”.
The restored film was screened as part of a major David Lean retrospective at BFI in 2008.
The film’s soundtrack, which includes the song London Pride, was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Muir Mathieson.
Critical and Commercial Status:
This Happy Breed was the biggest British hit of the year followed by Fanny By Gaslight, The Way Ahead and Love Story.
The National Board of Review named Celia Johnson Best Actress for her portrayal of Ethel Gibbons.
Release in the UK and US
When the film was released in 1944, the fates of these individuals were still unknown. Singapore remained occupied until the war in the Pacific ended, in August 1945.
By the time the film was released in the U.S.A., in April 1947, prisoners had been freed and survivors had shared their accounts.
Cast
Robert Newton as Frank Gibbons
Celia Johnson as Ethel Gibbons
Alison Leggatt as Aunt Sylvia
Stanley Holloway as Bob Mitchell
John Mills as Billy Mitchell
Kay Walsh as Queenie Gibbons
Amy Veness as Mrs. Flint
Eileen Erskine as Vi Gibbons
Credits:
Directed by David Lean
Written by Lean Anthony Havelock-Allan, Ronald Neame, based on This Happy Breed by Noël Coward
Produced by Noël Coward
Cinematography Ronald Neame
Edited by Jack Harris
Music by Muir Mathieson, Clifton Parker
Distributed by Eagle-Lion Distributors Limited
Release date: June 1, 1944
Running time 115 minutes
Budget $900,000
