In Which We Serve

A destroyer goes down in the Mediterranean. The survivors hold on to a life raft while German aircraft pass overhead. On the raft are the captain, a petty officer and an ordinary seaman. Waiting on the water, each remembers his own life. The captain's house, the petty officer's wife, the seaman's fiancee. The ship grows inside the story too; from her building to her first voyage and on into the war. The narrative sets the classes side by side and shows all three of them on the same ship. Noel Coward directs with David Lean, in Lean's first film as a director. Coward wrote the screenplay, composed the music, produced and played the captain. John Mills, Bernard Miles, Celia Johnson and Richard Attenborough are in the cast. It is a British production. After about three weeks of shooting Coward accepted that Lean knew more about film than he did and largely handed the direction to him. The story rests on the experiences of Coward's friend Lord Louis Mountbatten and on his ship, sunk in May 1941. The film was made while the war was going on and openly means to raise morale. The matter it treats is common cause; the film sees class difference and argues that the war suspends it. The narrative moves in flashbacks and cuts the sea against the homes. Celia Johnson's Christmas dinner speech is the most remembered scene in it. The film does not personify the enemy and uses no language of hatred. The ending loses the ship without breaking up the crew. Its limit is purpose; the narrative does not hide its propaganda intent and some passages look too formal today. Who it is for: viewers who like British war classics and the cinema of the period. Who it is not for: it is dated, propagandist in tone, and the ending sad.