THE WAY AHEAD

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 312, 15 June 1945, Page 18

THE WAY AHEAD

(Two Cities-GBD)

N principle, and from a long-term viewpoint, I don’t in the least like the idea of one man having a virually complete monopoly of all film

production in Great Britain, but I have to admit, from what we have seen so far, that J. Arthur Rank is making a pretty good job of it. The Way Ahead is the latest production to reach us from Mr. Rank’s pet Two Cities studio (which the week before gave us Demi-Paradise) and it is in almost every way an expert and heartening piece of film-making, employing that semi-documentary, semifictional technique which we have recently seen in several notable British pictures. Indeed, The Way Ahead does for the British Army what San Demetrio, London did for the Merchant Marine, what In Which We Serve did for the Royal Navy, and The First of the Few did, not so successfully, for the R.A.F. Only San Demetrio has done it better. If this is the direction in which the British cinema is going to develop, then-with or without Mr, Rank-the way. ahead looks bright. Civilian into soldier is the theme of The Way Ahead. The method of treatment is to apply the matter-of-fact, impersonal approach of the documentary to a set of characters and circumstances which, though actually fictional, are representative and plausible enough to seem almost entirely realistic. We see an assorted group of civilians-includ-ing a floor-walker, a shop-assistant, a farmer, astravel agent, a mechanic who tends the boilers. under the House of Commons-being conscripted into an infantry regiment; see them rebelling against discipline, gradually adjusting themselves to it, learning that their officers and n.c.o.’s are capable of being considerate as well as sarcastic; see them in training, going to war, being torpedoed and sent back again; and finally we see them justifying all the work that has been put°into them during a battle in North Africa. The film was produced with the cooperation of the Army authorities. They released David Niven to be the star, Carol Reed to direct, and Eric Ambler and Péter Ustinov to write the script. Now, official, interest in any venture of this kind is always apt to be a drawback; the authorties may insist on too much propaganda and not enough entertainment; they may want this said and not. that. In fact, they may want just an "official picture." But that hasn’t happened here. Those responsible for The Way Ahead have had the sense not to pretend that everything in the Army is so lovely that civilians are just breaking their necks to get into it. On the contrary, they make it plain that new recruits are likely to be thoroughly fed up, that the process of adjustment will be long and often difficult, and that during their training they really may stand a pretty fair chance of breaking their necks. The producers, however, have not gone to the other extreme: they have been realistic (notably so during a fire at sea), but they have also been human; underlying the spectacle and the facts

are humour, warmth, and shrewd observation of character. Indeed, very little little has been left undone to make this a noteworthy picture. The music-an original score by William Alwyn-has been well chosen, and so has the cast, headed by David Niven as the young officer, and by Billy Hartnell as the sergeant, a professional soldier who at first is the focus-point for the recruits’ dislike of the Army, and later, when they understand him better, for their respect. Almost the only place where the film departs from its convincingly factual pattern, by introducing some rather too highly-coloured material, is in the final battle scene. It is casting no aspersions on the film -though it may be casting some on our civilisation-to mention that it was replaced after only one week in Wellington by Betty Grable’s new opus, Pin-up Girl. On second thoughts, perhaps the’ way ahead is not quite so bright after all. Ss