Saturday Night Cinema: Dunkirk

Tonight’s Saturday Night Cinema is the desperate and heroic Dunkirk. A previous close shave when Britain exited from Europe. Perhaps one of the best British war films ever. A military catastrophe, in which the courage and determination of ordinary people save the British army from annihilation.

John Mills at his best, playing a common man, a lowly corporal leading his hapless platoon through German lines to Dunkirk.

NY Times review:

September 11, 1958
The Screen: Stern Look at Dunkirk; British Army Retreat Is Shown at Capitol
By BOSLEY CROWTHER

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EIGHTEEN years after the occurrence of those desperate and heroic feats by which the British removed their beaten Army from the beaches of Dunkirk at the end of the first dark phase of World War II, British producer Sir Michael Balcon has sent us a tough and forthright film that commemorates the famous action in awesomely realistic terms.

Its simple title is “Dunkirk,” and it opened at the Capitol yesterday. Perhaps it is just as well for national feelings that there has been an eighteen-year lag.

For this dramatized recapitulation of the general sequence of events by which the battered and broken British Army was miraculously taken out of France is no starry-eyed glorification of a “triumphant retreat.” It does not offer the ordeal of Dunkirk as a military “withdrawal” that can be remembered with professional pride. Nor does it soften the fact of what was clearly a dismal catastrophe with a sort of eloquent cinematic shorthand that was used to suggest the Dunkirk salvage in the long-ago “Mrs. Miniver.”

This is a straight-from-the shoulder, uncompromising account of a retreat that was saved from full disaster only by a miracle of amateur improvisation and national morale. And the mood of it all is crisply capsuled by a British journalist who stands on the beach at Dunkirk, among the masses of straggling, frightened troops and, looking about him, mutters, “What a shambles we’ve made of this whole rotten affair!”

Even though “the miracle of Dunkirk”—the snatching of some 300,000 men off the open beaches by a motley fleet of naval, commercial and pleasure craft—is faithfully and movingly enacted in the last quarter or so of this film, it is the drifting and muddling and pure chance-taking that went on before it that take up the better part of the picture’s nigh two hours.

It is the story of uncertainty and complacency on the home front where our journalist, stoutly played by Bernard Lee, tries vainly to get some information and arouse citizens who think in terms of the “phoney war.” It is the story of blank confusion in the Army, represented by a handful of infantrymen trying to scuttle across France to Dunkirk under the command of a tough little corporal, played beautifully by John Mills. And it is the story of the ponderous assembling of that flimsy rescue fleet and the almost-by-chance dispatch of citizens to do the job the Navy had not the ships or men to do.

Since some considerable documentation from history and literature is said to be back of the screen play written by W. P. Lipscomb and David Divine, it is to be assumed that the details of this picture are reliably accurate. Certainly Director Leslie Norman has not tried to assuage them with balm.

He has made the retreat of the soldiers, the strafing of French peasants on the roads and the terrible slaughter on the beaches as painful and horrid as they must have been. And an excellent Ealing Studio production in good documentary black and white conveys a startling illusion of the real thing, except in some of the obviously staged scenes. Intercut newsreel footage heightens that illusion of reality.

Performances, too, are in fine order. In addition to Messrs. Mills and Lee, Richard Attenborough, as a citizen boatman, and Warwick Ashton as a soldier, do first-rate jobs. But this is essentially an effort in which the whole group of actors combine to give a feeling of truth and personal anguish to a drama that probably boiled in all their blood.

What is the significance of this picture, coming, as it does, eighteen years after Dunkirk, thirteen years after World War II? Well, it appears grimly minded—almost masochistic, indeed—that there can always be a harsh awakening for those who drowse in complacency.

The Cast
DUNKIRK, screen play by David Divine and W. P. Lipscomb; based on the novel “The Big Pick-Up” by Elleston Trevor and on “Dunkirk” by Lieut. Col. Ewan Butler and Maj. J. S. Bradford; directed by Leslie Norman; produced by Michael Balcon for Ealing Films; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. At the Capitol. Broadway and Fifty-first Street. Running time: 113 minutes.
Binns . . . . . John Mills
Mike . . . . . Robert Urquhart
Barlow . . . . . Ray Jackson
Dave Bellman . . . . . Meredith Edwards
Military Spokesman . . . . . Anthony Nicholls
Charles . . . . . Bernard Lee
Jouvet . . . . . Michael Shillo
Holden . . . . . Richard Attenborough
Frankie . . . . . Sean Barrett
Merchant Seaman . . . . . Victor Maddern
Diana . . . . . Maxine Audley
Lieut. Lumpkin . . . . . Kenneth Cope
Fraser . . . . . Denys Graham
Battery Sgt. Major . . . . . Warwick Ashton
Battery Major . . . . . Peter Halliday
Miles . . . . . Ronald Hines

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Mark Steiner

7 years ago

There are many accounts of what contributed to the miracle at Dunkirk. One was provided by the Germans. General Heinz Guderian and his armored forces had little Allied resistance between him and the Channel when an inexplicable order arrived from Hitler ordering him to halt. Another involved the occurrence of low clouds and even fog that severely limited German air attacks over the evacuation area. No matter what view prevails in the long run, it was a miracle for certain.

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Ron Cole

7 years ago

Reply to  Mark Steiner

A great part of that miracle was the ingenuity of common Warriors who could function with their Officers and NCOs killed or missing.
The Germans were totally dependant on their Officers.
Ernie Pyle recorded that brilliantly.

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ERIC

7 years ago

Great film with grit. There is a scene, just played by voices coming from the sand dunes, which captures the harsh reality of the soldiers lot. One young chap is heard repeatedly crying out that he didn’t want to die. You then hear an old sweat retort: “You might bloody well have to”.

I knew a couple of chaps who were there – one got away and the other was left behind minus a limb. Dark days!

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Anthony Stone

7 years ago

Thanks from a British subscriber for publicizing this great film.

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Steve

7 years ago

I am always amazed whenever i think about the history of WWII and the actions of those first soldiers returning back to take the beaches. Those incredible heroes who had such selfless bravery to climb the cliffs with guns raining down death on many of them will forever be remembered by the West. I carry a work pack at about 35 – 50 lbs but a soldier then as today had to carry much more into battle – often over 100 lbs. I can understand how that much weight decreased mobility and so its truly a miracle how the allies were able to beat back the germans on returning to europe.

Once again Europe is under siege by a different but just as deadly enemy. The West is once again threatened by the age old enemy islamism as it has been throughout various times in our history. Stories like Dunkirk though, as terrible in one way as it was, act to show the tremendous resilience and sacrifice of those who stood against tyranny. The West is not only threatened today from without but from within our ranks but we can still draw strength from those who died and those who survived at places like Dunkirk and so many others in the cause for freedom as we shall do to once again turn back yet another murderous invasion by islamists.

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