Farewell Again

Carrying the same call to preparedness as Fire Over England (both were produced by Erich Pommer and scripted by Clemence Dane), this is a prototype In Which We Serve about a troopship bringing men home on leave after five years army service in India. Trouble stirs when orders require an immediate return to duty, but - after six hours in port during which all the carefully planted domestic problems and heartbreaks get a cursory airing - everybody nobly buckles to. Quite warmly praised at the time, but the class attitudes accepted as perfectly normal - the officers, suffering stoically, soothe other-rank grumbles with a patronising pat on the head; the gentry cavort over cocktails and dancing in the saloon while the lower orders huddle like squalid sardines below decks - are positively cringe-making. No wonder Churchill and the Tories were elected out after World War II.