THE WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER Movie Review

1944 Clarence Brown

From the opening credits that mirror Mrs. Miniver, it's obvious that this glossy propaganda is aimed at a female audience. In all senses of the term, it is a “women's picture” concerned with personal relationships, and the characters' emotional reaction to events, not the events themselves. (Only two images of combat appear on screen, and they are not fully developed scenes.) That is a completely legitimate, though rarely seen, approach to the subject of war, and the film encompasses two of them.

It begins in the “present” of 1943, where Red Cross worker Susan Dunn Ashwood (Irene Dunne) supervises a London hospital. In the early morning lull before an engagement that will result in her wards being filled, she thinks back on the morning when she first arrived in England on a vacation from America in 1916. An Anglophile's Anglophile, she is only slightly deterred by the grumpy reaction of her more patriotic father (Frank “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” Morgan). Then, on the last night of her stay, the courtly old Col. Forsythe (C. Aubrey Smith) invites her to accompany him to a society shindig where the King and Queen will be in attendance.

Susan jumps at the chance. Col. Forsythe arranges a meeting with his young friend Sir John Ashwood (Alan Marshal) and lets nature take its course. The expected complications arise, but the boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl-boy-gets-girl-back formula is played out with well-realized characters and a few interesting twists. Throughout, the production values are first-class, from the stuffy elegance of a British manor house to the rolling fields of the estate to a French seaside resort. No locations were used. Everything was created on the MGM backlot and sound stages.

Strict authenticity is not the aim here. Director Clarence Brown (National Velvet, The Yearling) is interested first in telling a good love story, and second in cementing Anglo-American cooperation against a common enemy. He does both. Neither Irene Dunne nor Alan Marshal is particularly emotional or demonstrative, and that lack of expressiveness is used to underscore their characters' sense of duty and self-sacrifice. Those virtues are personified in their son, initially played by Roddy McDowall, and later by Peter Lawford.

By contemporary standards, the film goes much too far, becoming heavy-handed in its affirmation of all things British: society, culture, class system. The points are hammered home, then for those who might still have missed them, a voice-over narrator reads from Alice Duer Miller's title poem, with additional lines by Robert Nathan. Seen as propaganda, the film is earnest, serious, and single-minded to a fault. The flag-waving coda may seem like overkill, but given the shamelessness of what has come before, it is somehow appropriate.

Cast: Irene Dunne (Susan Dunn Ashwood), Alan Marshal (Sir John Ashwood), Frank Morgan (Hiram Porter Dunn), Peter Lawford (John Ashwood II), Gladys Cooper (Lady Jean Ashwood), May Whitty (Nanny), Sir C. Aubrey Smith (Colonel), Roddy McDowall (John Ashwood II as a boy), Van Johnson (Sam Bennett), Elizabeth Taylor (Young Betsy), June Lockhart (Betsy at 18), John Warburton (Reggie), Jill Esmond (Rosamund), Norma Varden (Mrs. Bland), Tom Drake (American soldier), Arthur Shields (Benson), Brenda Forbes (Gwennie), Edmund Breon (Maj. Bancroft), Clyde Cook (Jennings), Isobel Elsom (Mrs. Bancroft), Lumsden Hare (Vicar), Miles Mander (Maj. Loring), Ian Wolfe (Skipper); Written by: George Froeschel, Jan Lustig, Claudine West; Cinematography by: George Folsey; Music by: Herbert Stothart. Producer: Sidney Franklin, MGM. Awards: Nominations: Academy Awards '44: Best Black and White Cinematography. Running Time: 126 minutes. Format: VHS.