This Happy Breed Movie Review

The name of director David Lean conjures up images of blistering heat, frozen tundra, sand dunes, and thousands of extras. From 1957–1984, with one exception, Lean was a director of lavish epics. But there was a time when Lean made small, intimate films like This Happy Breed. It's hard to imagine Robert Newton in an UNDER-the-top role, but that's who Frank Gibbons is and that's how he plays him. Celia Johnson plays his no-nonsense wife, Ethel, their cat Percy plays himself (I guess), and Kay Walsh is their dissatisfied daughter, Queenie. She's meant to marry Billy Mitchell (John Mills), the son of Frank's friend, Bob (Stanley Holloway). But Queenie wants more from life, and she leaves home and hearth to find it; Ethel is determined never to forgive her. In the meanwhile, Frank's sister (Alison Leggatt) and Ethel's mother (Amy Veness) bait each other day in and out, each to deflect their unhappiness with their lot in life. They feel lonely and unwanted and if they didn't needle each other, they wouldn't have much else. A milestone occurs when Reg Gibbons (John Blythe) marries a girl named Phyllis (Betty Fleetwood), and another, sadder milestone occurs soon after, beautifully conveyed by Lean in a sequence without dialogue. Time passes, and people and their circumstances change. Noel Coward, who did not grow up like this, has a tendency to satirize the working classes. Lean, who might have grown up on the same block as the Gibbons and Mitchell families, paid his dues going for the director's tea. His interpretation here is filled with empathy, insight, and generosity of spirit.

1947 114m/C GB Robert Newton, Celia Johnson, John Mills, Kay Walsh, Stanley Holloway, Amy Veness, Alison Leggatt, Eileen Erskine, John Blythe, Guy Verney, Betty Fleetwood, Merle Tottenham; D: David Lean; W: David Lean, Noel Coward, Ronald Neame; C: Ronald Neame; M: Noel Coward, Muir Mathieson. VHS