Millions Like Us

Millions Like Us
Directed by	Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder
Produced by	Edward Black
Written by	Sidney Gilliat Frank Launder
Starring	Eric Portman Gordon Jackson Patricia Roc Basil Radford Naunton Wayne Moore Marriott Joy Shelton Megs Jenkins Terry Randall
Music by	Hubert Bath (uncredited)
Cinematography	Jack Cox Roy Fogwell
Editing by	R.E. Dearing
Distributed by	Gainsborough Pictures
Release date(s)	5 November 1943 (1943-11-05)
Running time	103 min
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Millions Like Us is a 1943 British propaganda film, showing life in a wartime aircraft factory in documentary detail. It stars Patricia Roc, Eric Portman, Megs Jenkins, and Anne Crawford, was written by Sidney Gilliat, and directed by Gilliat and Frank Launder. It was filmed at Gainsborough Studios.

When Celia Crowson (Roc) is called up for war service, she hopes for a glamorous job in one of the services, but as a single girl she is directed into a factory making aircraft parts. Here she meets other girls from all different walks of life, and begins a relationship with a young airman.

Plot

Celia Crowson (Roc) and her family go on holiday to the south coast of England in the summer of 1939. Soon afterwards the Second World War breaks out and Celia's father (Moore Marriott) joins the home guard and her more confident sister Phyllis (Joy Shelton) joins the Auxiliary Territorial Service. Fearing her father's disapproval if she moves away from home, Celia hesitates about joining up but eventually her call-up papers arrive. Hoping to join the WAAF or one of the other services, Celia instead gets posted to a munitions factory, where she meets her co-workers, including her Welsh room-mate Gwen Price (Megs Jenkins) and the vain upper-middle-class Jennifer Knowles (Anne Crawford). Knowles dislikes the work they have to do at the factory, causing friction with their supervisor Charlie Forbes (Eric Portman) which eventually blossoms into a verbally combative romance.

A nearby RAF bomber station sends some of its men to a staff dance at the factory, during which Celia meets and falls in love with an equally-shy young Scottish flight sergeant Fred Blake (Gordon Jackson). Their relationship encounters a crisis when Fred refuses to tell Celia when he is sent out on his first mission, but soon afterwards they meet and make up, with Fred asking Celia to marry him. After the wedding they spend their honeymoon at the same south-coast resort as the Crowsons went to in 1939, finding it much changed with minefields and barbed wire defending against the expected German invasion. Just after returning to the factory, they find furnished rooms nearby to set up house together, but then Fred is killed in a bombing raid over Germany. Celia receives the news while working at the factory and at a mealtime shortly afterwards the band play Waiting at the Church, without realising it had been played at Celia's wedding reception. About to break down, Celia is comforted by her fellow workers, as bombers from Fred's squadron overfly the factory en route to another raid.

Cast

• Patricia Roc - Celia Crowson
• Gordon Jackson - Fred Blake
• Anne Crawford - Jennifer Knowles
• Basil Radford - Charters
• Naunton Wayne - Caldicott
• Moore Marriott - Jim Crowson
• Eric Portman - Charlie Forbes
• Joy Shelton - Phyllis Crowson
• John Boxer - Tom
• Valentine Dunn - Elsie
• Megs Jenkins - Gwen Price
• Terry Randall - Annie Earnshaw
• Amy Veness - Mrs. Blythe
• John Salew - Doctor Gill
• Beatrice Varley - Miss Wells
• Bertha Willmott - The Singer

External links

• Millions Like Us at the Internet Movie Database
• Millions Like Us at AllRovi
• Millions Like Us at the TCM Movie Database
• http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/442138/synopsis.html
• This is England