They Were Not Divided (1950)

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

A middle class married Brit and an American working in London join the Welsh Guards armoured regiment at Caterham in 1940. We follow them through basic training, after which they are both commissioned. For the next few years nothing happens, except their tanks keep having to be repainted depending on where they are not going. Eventually they are landed in Normandy after D-Day, and then fight their way through to the Ardennes, where they are both killed. Along the way we meet a variety of characters, officers and men, to show the British Army at its best. Along the way also, the Brit gets leave to see his wife, and the American meets a nurse skinny dipping in a lake behind his friend's house. Just after Arnhem the two hitch a lift back to Northolt for 48 hours leave, during which time the American marries and impregnates the Englishwoman. What came over well in the film was the waiting of war, all the non-fighting activities which went on (including the liberation of German stores and supplies, such as champagne), the long drives through Europe, punctuated by hordes of delirious liberated French and Belgians, occasional sharp and terrifying battle moments, and the loss of friends though enemy action and careless accident. There was a great deal of actual wartime footage, interspersed with staged sequences using real wartime equipment (the tank rolling over was quite spectacular). Biggest goof was when the two officers come out of Northolt and hitch a lift to London in the wrong direction.

The BBC recently aired this on a lazy Monday afternoon in mid-August when probably not many were watching. But as this was made by Terence Young (future director of some prolific Bondmovies) I happened to tape it.What a great surprise this proves to be. Probably about the sole movie account of a (chiefly) British tank battalion journey into France and Belgium after D-Day.I will admit it's all very "stiff British upperlip" (jolly good show boys and so on)and especially the romance segments have dated badly, but there is a true feel of authenticity, not only that it's made about 4 years after WWII, but the director gives a realistic and almost documentary-like style to the battle scenes.It all moves along at a brisk pace, and being a bit of WWII buff, it gave me a very rare insight and almost 'behind the scenes' view of a tankbatallion in action in 1944.I'll doubt if it is available on DVD so you will maybe have to wait till the BBC airs it again, in 10 years or so !

This was Terence Young's fourth outing behind the camera and perhaps wisely he opted to play it safe opting for a subject - the second world war - that was still providing material some five years after it ended and illustrating it via the usual tried-and-true clichés. After a somewhat stodgy, pedestrian opening Young allows his two protagonists, Edward Underdown and Ralph Campan, to steadily forge the friendship that is the core of the film. In true cliché style they met on their first day of basic training, graduated as officers together and served in the same regiment. We follow them in their day jobs through France post D-Day and in their other lives - Underdown happily married to Helen Cherry and Campan, a late developer, finding a wife of his own about the eighth reel. There was really only one way to end it and Young obliges by killing them both off in the last reel and having them buried in twin graves by a third man, a sergeant, who had also met them on the first day of basic training. Made in 1950 it's a tad hard to swallow in 2010.

This is an early work of Terence Young, the director, but a well-made, engrossing and ultimately very moving British war drama of World War II. Interestingly a very young Desmond Llewelyn has a cameo role as a Welsh tank commander, and when it came time for Young to find a new Q for the second James Bond movie, the original no longer being available, he remembered Llewelyn and cast him in what is now the longest running continuous role in the James Bond saga.