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Purely Joyful Movie!

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Don't listen to the negative reviews

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

This homely classic of Noel Coward and David Lean is like a corollary to Coward's earlier masterpiece "Cavalcade" 10 years earlier from the 1890s up to the thirties, but this is more concentrated on family life only, and although it's a small world there are some human dramas in it all the same, principally enacted by Kay Walsh as the young and flippant Queenie, the problem child of the family, courted by John Mills as a sailor, who is willing to sacrifice anything for her no matter how bad she behaves.The main actors are Celia Johnson and Robert Newton, though, matched by the inimitable Stanley Holloway, and some of the best scenes are with him, particularly the long scene of the farewell letter. Celia Johnson always made stark impressions as something of the ultimate woman and mother and more so here than ever. It's to the advantage of the film that there is not much of the outside world intruding on the cozy family life. Of course, there is some political engagement by one of the sons-in-law, the great strikes make themselves noticed, there is som fascist agitation at Hyde Park Corner, but there is nothing of the great depression, and none of the great political affairs disturb the family.One of their most charming ingredients is the case of the old mother. She is always discontent and finds a perfect partner to nag with in her unmarried daughter, Celia's sister, and Robert Newton is very categorical in his final comments on her case. It's a masterstroke of Noel Coward to make such a perfectly sour and negative person appear as the most hilarious part of the story.

David Lean's hallmark interwar drama, his sophomore feature movie is an adaptation of Noël Coward's play. Shot with gorgeous Technicolor felicity, THIS HAPPY BREED is a compelling slice- of-life story chronicling the vicissitude of Gibbons family from 1919 to 1939, before WWII looming large ominously in the offing. The Gibbons family settles into their new house in South London shortly after WWI, a household of seven, patriarch Frank (Newton), matriarch Ethel (Johnson), their three children: Reg (Blythe), Vi (Erskine) and Queenie (Walsh), as well as Ethel's spinster sister Sylvia (Leggatt) and their mother Ms. Flint (Veness), whose barbs-throwing schticks can never run dry even if being tediously deployed here, and both actresses have poignant moments which vouch for their affecting versatility during the film's most heartbreaking revelation. Lean hones the subsequent smarting long shot with a perversely impassive static shot, entirely banks on Newton and Johnson's reactions, he is already a dab-hand in theatricality at such an early stage! Coward's story gives an easy pass on marital hitches (a recurring beef of Ethel is Frank's drinking problem, but that is occasional and rather comically portrayed), instead, homes in on the generational gap between parents and their children, their disagreements in politics, world-views and lifestyles, a tussle between idealism (hot-blooded, revolutionary, and eager to success) and realism (the innate attributes of British's monarchical roots), an exchange between sage epigrams learned from the college named life and headstrong wishful thinking liberated through the airy-fairy unworldliness. And the POV never deflects from Frank and Ethel, because they are the emblem of mankind, benevolent, upstanding, perseverant and refuse to be squashed by adversity (this is high melodrama so to speak). Meantime, Lean nimbly slips in cardinal societal events to extract the ethos of its time, but refrains from becoming over-patriotic, because, in the end of the day, it is a tale apropos of commonality refracted through the microcosm of a family saga, and it is achieved with a remarkable equilibrium between enthusiasm and sobriety.Impressive performances a gogo, Robert Newton and Celia Johnson are unexpectedly naturalistic when handling those stagy materials - they are simply the best parents one can ever imagine to have, and Johnson in particular, excels in the role which is much senior to her real age, what a range she exhibits! Although, in the earlier segments, it is quite a stretch to believe she could be the mother of 3, since she looks barely a tad older than the three actors who play her children. Kay Walsh, as the rebellious daughter Queenie, has her own moment of grandstanding and she actually pulls off the least likable character with rather unforeseen honesty and moxie, whereas a four- square John Mills, who plays Bill Mitchell, the neighbor's son who carries a torch for her unyieldingly, is a warmth generator pops up intermittently during the family's turbulence. Finally, Stanley Holloway, who plays Bill's father Bob, Frank's comrade-in-arms, chummy and sometimes well-oiled, whenever he appears with Frank, their scenes smack of nostalgia, not of war but heart- felt camaraderie. Through and through, THIS HAPPY BREED is engaging, endearing and brilliantly touching, shorn of highfalutin artifice which might impinge on Lean-Coward's following collaboration BLITHE SPIRIT (1945).

I came across this film purely by accident, flipping the channels, and I stuck with it to see what I'd think about it, produced by Noël Coward and directed by Sir David Lean. It was basically a drama seeing how the lives of a family are changed and continue during World War II. The Gibbons family: husband/father Frank (Robert Newton), wife/mother Ethel (Brief Encounter's Celia Johnson), daughter Queenie (Kay Walsh) and son Reg (John Blythe), have moved to a house in the suburbs, after end of WWI. During the breakout of WWII, the family sees a marriage, the birth of children, heartbreak, tragedy and even some death, but all the family and their friends stick with each other through it all. Also starring Sir John Mills as Billy Mitchell, My Fair Lady's Stanley Holloway as Bob Mitchell, Amy Veness as Mrs. Flint, Alison Leggatt as Aunt Sylvia, Eileen Erskine as Vi, Guy Verney as Sam Leadbitter, Merle Tottenham as Edie and Betty Fleetwood as Phyllis Blake, with narration by Lord Sir Laurence Olivier. There doesn't seem to be a specific plot or story, it is a multi-character film, but it is an enjoyable one. Very good!

Kind of overlapping the era of British history that his previous work Cavalcade had covered, Noel Coward wrote one of his most popular plays in The Happy Breed which premiered in London in 1942 as Great Britain was fighting for its life. This film adaption coming as it did in 1944 when the tide of the war had turned, almost seems to justify Coward's faith in his country and the pluck of its people.The image we have today of Noel Coward is the ultra-sophisticate hanging around with royalty and other titled folks, amusing them with a sample of his acclaimed wit. But the kind of middle class background that the Gibbons and their neighbors the Mitchells come from is exactly where Noel Coward had his roots. His early years are covered in Cavalcade and the years overlap into This Happy Breed. Both films really ought to be seen back to back as a great sample of British social history.Newly discharged veteran from the Great War, Robert Newton and his wife Celia Johnson buy their dream house on Sycamore Lane to raise their three children. By chance their neighbors happen to be Stanley Holloway, Newton's wartime buddy and his family the Mitchells. The film is the story of the Mitchells and the Gibbons and how their lives interconnect in the years between the World Wars. Their family situations are seen against the backdrop of the events of the times like the General Strike, the Depression and the formation of the Coalition National Government to fight it, and the death of King George V.Anyone who expects the eye rolling Blackbeard from Robert Newton will be pleasantly surprised. Newton could be restrained if he had to, and in David Lean he certainly had a director that would rein in his excesses if it were ever necessary. What surprised me was that Noel Coward himself played the lead when This Happy Breed debuted in London. I certainly would have liked to have seen Coward's interpretation of the part.Kay Walsh who was Mrs. David Lean at the time played the elder daughter Queenie for Newton and Johnson. John Mills who is a career Navy man and Holloway's son loves Walsh, but she's a naughty thing and out for a good time. Let's say I think Mills just might qualify for sainthood in his performance with what he put up with.This Happy Breed is a great play with average folks that Mr. Average American, let alone Mr. Average British could identify with and it's great social commentary of an important era in history.