The Story …
Shortly after the end of the First World War, the film focuses on the Gibbons family – Frank, his wife Ethel, their three children Reg, Vi and Queenie, his widowed sister Sylvia and Ethel’s mother – after they settle in a rented house in Clapham, South London. Frank is delighted that his next-door neighbour is Bob Mitchell, a friend from his days in the army.
Frank, Ethel and Bob attend a Victory Parade in the summer of 1919. Frank finds employment in a travel agency, arranging tours of Western Front battlefields, run by another old army chum. As the children grow up and the country adapts to peacetime, the family attend the British Empire Exhibition held at Wembley in 1924.
At Christmas 1925 the family acquire their first crystal set radio.
Reg becomes friendly with Sam, a staunch socialist, who is attracted to Vi. Queenie is pursued by Bob’s sailor son Billy, but she longs to escape the suburbs and lead a more glamorous life elsewhere. During the General Strike of 1926 (in which Frank and Bob volunteer as drivers and conductors of a bus), Reg is injured in a brawl on Whitechapel Road. Vi blames Sam, who had brought her brother to the area, but eventually, her anger dissipates and she marries him.
In 1928, Charleston dance mania arrives in England and Queenie wins a dance contest. In 1929 Sam and Vi attend one of the new talking pictures (The Broadway Melody) at the cinema. News of the electoral rise of the German Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler, begins to appear in the newspapers.[5] Reg marries Phyllis. Billy (now a chief petty officer) proposes to Queenie, but she confesses she is in love with a married man and soon after runs off with him. Her mother says she cannot forgive her and never wants to see her again.
After a drunken regimental reunion, Bob expresses his faith that the League of Nations will keep the peace, and scoffs at Frank’s concerns about the disarmament policies of the new National Government and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. As time passes, Ethel’s mother dies, Aunt Sylvia discovers spiritualism and Reg and Phyllis are killed in a car crash.
The British Union of Fascists tries to stir up anti-Semitic sentiment in the city.[6] Stanley Baldwin wins the 1935 United Kingdom general election. King George V dies (January 1936) and Frank and Ethel join the crowds filing past his coffin. King Edward VIII abdicates (11 December 1936).
When Neville Chamberlain returns from Munich (September 1938) with the promise of “peace in our time,” Frank is disgusted by people’s enthusiastic response.
Billy, home on leave from the Royal Navy and now a sub-lieutenant, announces to the family he ran into Queenie while on shore leave in France.
Abandoned by her lover, she and an older woman opened a tearoom to make ends meet and she deeply regrets having left home. Billy reveals they were married two weeks previously in the Plymouth Registry Office and he has brought her back to London; Ethel forgives her.
With the new war on the horizon, Queenie leaves her baby son in the care of her parents when she sails to join her husband in Singapore.
Frank and Ethel, faced with an empty nest, leave the house and move to a flat with their grandson …
Credits :
Directed by : David Lean
Written by : David Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan and Ronald Neame
Based on : This Happy Breed by Noël Coward
Produced by : Noël Coward
Cinematography : Ronald Neame
Edited by : Jack Harris
Music by : Muir Mathieson and Clifton Parker
Distributed by : Eagle-Lion Distributors Limited
Release Date : 1 June 1944
Genre : #War – #Drama – #Life
Cast :
Robert Newton as Frank Gibbons
Celia Johnson as Ethel Gibbons
Alison Leggatt as Aunt Sylvia
Stanley Holloway as Bob Mitchell
John Mills as Billy Mitchell
Kay Walsh as Queenie Gibbons
Amy Veness as Mrs Flint
Eileen Erskine as Vi Gibbons
John Blythe as Reg Gibbons
Guy Verney as Sam Leadbitter
Betty Fleetwood as Phyllis Blake
Merle Tottenham as Edie, the Gibbons’ maid
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Link do Vídeo
What a treasure of a movie thank you for uploading 🙂🙂
😀😀😀😀😀🤣🤣😂
WHAT A FILM! What a restoration! The phrase that comes to mind is "nostalgia up to date!" Thanks to all concerned.
My favourite movie of all time. Nostalgia for a time and a place I was never part of… weirdly.
Work of genius. Coward's love song to lower middle-class inter-war "Sarfff London". I know Clapham and Wandsworth like the back of my hand. Like the murmurings of my heart too.
Nice touch to have Laurence Olivier narrate the introduction to this lovely domestic story, starting just after the Great War.
Regards, andrea
Classic ❤❤
Tears in my eyes.
Such a lovely film, reminds me of my grandparents living in SW London. It's all changed now for the worst. Good actors a real family story which many people would recognise. They don't make them like that any more.
It just swings along drawing you with it, what a pleasure, thank you.
Excellent story line with as always the remarkable acting of Celia Johnson.
What a treat after hip replacement surgery. Who is the familiar male actor playing the sailor named Billie?
What an enjoyable movie. First time I've ever seen it. Thanks for posting.
I've seen this movie before. Look for a young John Mills, and Stanley Holloway (who stole the show from Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn in the movie "My Fair Lady".
One of my favourite films
A truly beautiful movie.
I just love it.!!!!!!!!
Great Movie
A true classic – hadn't seen this in years and it has held up beautifully.
One of the best British movies
A superb film that takes you back to how it was in 1930's in London. Life was certainly tougher, yet families stuck together with the old value and traditions and your street was an extended family, each looking out for their neighbours. Such a shame we don't have that unity any more. Thank you for sharing!
One of the greatest movies ever made, really, you obviously don’t watch many films.
WONDERFUL ❤
Mildred pearse or footstep in the fog plz
Thanks for posting 😊🎭✨️
Great film,makes me nostalgic for the world of my Grandparents in the 20s and 30s and how we used to be , smart and elegant,respectable,no tattoos or swearing every two minutes ! My only gripe is Queenie having a 1944 haircut in the early 30s !
Robert Newton was such a fine actor. No actor has ever bettered his "Bill Sikes".
Interesting to see although I fast forwarded a lot of it. These were my parents' childhood years in England. The time between the two wars. The absence of world war in my own life and my children's, in Europe has been the biggest gain. The other thought is how much our houses mean to us (and families of course) – that we never really do change.
remember this as a radio play….
I'm 59, the main protagonists remind me of my grandparents who were ordered, strict, fair, patriotic and loyal to their friends family and neighbors! How we've changed and how horrified they'd be at the direction their old country has turned?
Great film, but the subtitles are hilarious! I wonder if anyone ever checks them?
Love the sense of humour, and no swearing. Remember my mother using 'shut up', and then myself using it when younger!
a fantastic film from an era of great films great story telling
Wonderful film, great acting. Some really emotional scenes. One of my all-time favourites.
They don't make movies like this anymore unfortunately. I enjoyed it very much.
I'm not particularly fond of this movie I find it quite boring and repetition. Sames that self all they do is argue, and argue about nearly nothing that matters.
Love these old films they are great👏👏👏
I was born in 48 and my mum and dad were just like the same we lived in east London by the river Thames wapping we used to live just like in this film it brings back memories of our family most are all gone now what would I give to go back for one day with my east London family
Since I first saw this film I just loved it. I was very young then and I am now 72. God bless the Brits that would never have let the Nazis jackboot their way through our great land.
💜👏
Brilliant acting.
Excellent 😎
The jolly music in the begining immediately perked me up! I love everything having to do with British life. Most of my favorite authors, musicians, television shows, are British. Its been a lifelong dream to go there.
Utterly wonderful. Just watching how the actors behave in domestic settings reminds me of grandma and papa. They used to sit there with the TV on reading news papers… it makes sense when you remember there was no screen for the first 45 years of their life
I am so so used to Robert Newton as John Silver, or Anciente Pistol that I keep forgetting what a fine actor he was.
Just wonderful! This Virginian has always appreciated the English way with films. Thanks very much, it's been a real pleasure!
when men were men and women were women , and all natives of this hard fought beautiful land . thankyou for this wonderful film ..
The fast-paced dialogue! Beautifully done. 😊🤣