In some ways Monty Wooley represents the best of
the studio system and the worst. He was a character actor who made it to
the big time in The Man Who Comes to Dinner and basically continued to play
a version of that character in all his films. The studio knew what they had
and wasn't going to mess with the formula. But it fits him so well. Irascible,
erudite, elitist, mocking, critical but if you dig deep enough a warm-hearted
soul. He was an American but often played an Englishman because in Hollywood
those characteristics fit the English much better than rugged Americans.
I have become a big fan of his only recently having seen now four of his
films. The only other actor that took up that same sarcastic sneering space
was Clifton Webb, but Webb had an innate waspishness that seemed bottomless
while Woolley gives off gruff warmth even when cutting someone down. He is
perfect as the grumpy older man in this lovely understated propaganda film.
It is based on a novel by Nevil Shute (A Town Called Alice, On the Beach)
and the screenplay is by Nunnally Johnson, a topnotch writer for Fox.
There are some poignant propaganda bits here. Churchill coming on the radio
giving his We Will Fight Them on the Beaches speech, the son who went down
in the RAF, the children looking over the edge and simply saying "dead people"
after the Germans strafed a road full of people, a French man who has been
caught saying I will join De Gaulle. Woolley says "who is he". "The soul
of France. You will hear of him". The French man is played by Marcel Dalio,
who had barely escaped France ahead of the Nazis. Eighty years after the
film was produced it still carries a sentimental wallop with it right to
the end. Films about tyranny never really age.
Howard (Wooley) is in France fishing when the Germans invade. He tells the
English owners of the inn that he should never have left but none of the
military services had any use for him because of his age (Woolley was fifty
four at the time but with his white whiskers always appears older). He decides
to make his way back - simple - a train to Paris and then a plane to London.
The owners though beg him to take their two children with him. "This is no
place for English children". Reluctantly, he agrees. The two kids are played
by child stars - Roddy McDowall who had just done How Green is My Valley
and Peggy Ann Garner who in a few years was in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for
which she got a special Oscar. They are both very sweet and natural. You
can see why they became child stars.
Of course, the trip is not so easy. The Nazis are everywhere. So are collaborators.
As one Frenchman tells them - nobody knows who they can trust - can I trust
you - can you trust me. On the journey three more children attach themselves
to Howard and he may grumble but takes them. Ann Baxter as a French woman
who loved his son assists them. Otto Preminger plays a German officer who
captures them. The final scene is a wonderful touch. Howard makes it back
to London and immediately heads for his club and orders a port while bombs
fall about them. Both the film and Wooley were nominated for Oscars.
