The Way Ahead

A group of civilians conscripted in the middle of the war: a salesman, a boilerman, a waiter. They go through basic training, learn to tolerate one another, and are finally shipped to North Africa. The film is not interested in the front. It is interested in transformation: it spends almost all its length in the training camp and treats the real event as a set of strangers becoming a unit. The battle is left to the end and is short. The form keeps to the measured tone of British war cinema: no speeches about heroism, plenty of humour, and an officer who makes as many mistakes as the recruits. Its origin is literally military. In 1943 Carol Reed made an army training film called The New Lot about the experiences of five new recruits. The same material was then expanded into a feature, written by Eric Ambler and Peter Ustinov, with Ustinov also appearing in it. In America it was released in a slightly shorter cut as The Immortal Battalion. David Niven plays the officer, with Stanley Holloway and William Hartnell filling out the platoon. Who it is for: viewers who like wartime British cinema and stories about soldiers being made. Who it is not for: anyone expecting action. This is not a war film but a film about preparation, and it never pretends otherwise.