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Too much of everything

Just perfect...

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

I have a big soft spot for movies like this, they have an authenticity that modern films about this era don't have. As someone who is from several generations who served in the Military it's nice to see something that is contemporary of WW2 that is not gritty, just realistic. Yes, it may have been made at the time as propaganda, but,it doesn't glamourise or glorify, it attempts to tell you as it is. It even hints at the barrack room language without being able to include it (it is the 1940's after all)David Niven is marvellous in the lead role, he was a serving officer at the time and it shows as you never feel he is acting, the same with the supporting cast of solid British character actors, Stanley Holloway, James Donald, John Laurie (how lovely to see him not playing the dour Scotsman for once) and Leslie Dwyer stand out in particular. And isn't Peter Ustinov terrific in his small role, a taste of things to come with him.Highly recommended.

This is a film about a seemingly run of the mill sort of group. After the Brits were involved in WWII and saw how bad the going would be, the government was forced to draft men who would traditionally have been exempt. Men who were a bit old or involved with careers that might be deemed 'useful' to the effort were suddenly being called to duty, as times were dire. The beginning of the film shows these men being selected for service.Unfortunately, this is a rather motley group and they tended to complain quite a bit as well (mostly by Stanley Holloway's character). How they could become a productive unit seemed pretty doubtful and I doubt if such an unimpressive group of men would have been used as actors had this propaganda film been made a few years earlier--when things looked really bad for the British. However, now that the war was appearing win-able, I can understand the choices of actors.There is nothing particularly magical about any of the film--their selection, their training or their combat experience in North Africa. However, all of it was very well handled and excelled because they tried to make it believable--normal, everyday men rising to the occasion. In many ways, it reminded me of a landlocked version of "In Which We Serve"--with fine acting and writing instead of jingoism and super-human exploits. Very well done.There are a few interesting actors in the film. Peter Ustinov is in his first film and he plays a French-speaking man. While his French isn't 100% fluid, it was decent and a bit of a surprise. Apparently, he was in real life David Niven's assistant in the British Army and somehow ended up in the film--and thus began his career. Also, Dr. Who fans will appreciate that the Sergeant is played by Dr. #1, William Hartnell.By the way, this is a little explanation for those who are not British or familiar with British history. Early in the film, someone asks Stanley Holloway's character who he liked in Parliament. Holloway indicates the only one he liked was Guy Fawkes! Fawkes was part of a plot to blow up Parliament in 1605, but was caught and executed--and the Brits celebrate this to this day with Guy Fawkes Day--as day of merry-making, bonfires and fireworks! Obviously Holloway's character wasn't exactly fond of the government, eh?!

Cockneys,Jocks,Toffs and ordinary geezers unite to thrash the Hun.We can all laugh now but that was how it was.We all knew who the enemy was and it wasn't some snooty bloke from Eton or some oik from Hackney,it was the Germans. Marvellously,in "The Way Ahead" we can see the Walmington on sea platoon in embryo.Close your eyes and Raymond Huntley could be Captain Mainwaring with his careful enunciation and strangled vowels.The Chelsea Pensioner surely Cpl Jones and of course the wonderful John Laurie is present in person. All of British society in the 1940s is represented.It may be unrecognisable as such now,but the sacrifices made by that generation have allowed us to become the totally different people we are today. An accurate social document then,and a true representation of army training at the time. Simply,one of the truest of British Cinema's portraits of the country in extremis. Most of the cast were going on to delight us a few years into the future at Ealing,Gainsborough or Rank or,in the case of William Hartnell,he would give a straight repetition of his role in this movie in the seminal "Carry on,Sergeant" 14 years later. Nobody would have believed Carol Reed if he's shown the Brits as cold - eyed killing machines,but by portraying them as reluctant,sometimes diffident,but always quietly patriotic and determined ordinary men he struck a chord that still reverberates 65 years on.

(Minor Spoilers) One of the very best war movies to be made while WWII was still in progress with almost no hint of propaganda and false or movie-like heroism on the part of the good guys a squad,not battalion, of British Tommies in the North African desert. Released in London on June 6, 1944 D-Day, the film was released in the USA a year later as "The Immortal Battalion, "The Way Ahead" couldn't have come at a better time with the Allies and Nazis in a life and death struggle on the beaches of Normandy.The movie starts off with a number of British recruits well into their 20's or even early 30's getting the hang of military life which at first they greatly, like their first sergeant Ned Fletcher(William Hertwell), dislike. As the trooper are whipped into shape by the though as nails Sgt. Fletcher and their commanding officer the soft spoken Let. Jim Perry, Davd Niven, their slated to sail to French North Africa to participate in the invasion, in Operation Torch, of Vichy France's colonies Algeria and Tunisia. As things turn out the troop ship that their in gets struck by a German U-boat torpedo and sinks, with half the battalion lost, in the Mediterranean Sea.With Let.Perry's unite now reduced to company size it's sent to Gibraltar for what seems like the remainder of the war. It's not until the battle of El Alamein starts to turn against the British Eight Army that Let. Perry's men are immediately sent to the front lines to stop the German Afrika's Corps advance. We , as well as Perry's men, finally get to see action as Let. Perry's men are outflanked and cut off by the advancing German troops as the battle of El Alamein rages on behind their backs.Fghting for their very lives and almost out of ammunition the trapped and outnumbered British troops at the end of the movie tack on their bayonets and walk out of the safety of their barricaded and fixed position, the Rispoli Café, to confront the heavily armed Germans. And at the same time walk into the pages of history in both courage and valor under fire.You just can't keep from holding back your tears in watching the movie knowing that almost all the cast will eventually end up killed or captured. The movie both didn't overemphasize the British Troops as well as downplay Rommell's Africa Corps. Both parties came across equally brave and effective in the fighting that takes pace in the film. Which is very rare in war movies were one side, the one who makes the film, is shown vastly superior morally as well as militarily over the other: The one that the side who made the movie is at war with.P.S Look for both Actor Peter Ustinov as café owner Rispoli and Trevor Howard as the troop ships, that goes under the waves, officer in the movie.