The White Cliffs of Dover (1944)

Touches You

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

White Cliffs of Dover was made to stoke the flames of patriotism. The film is largely Dunne as a 50 something WWII nurse awaiting a large number of casualties as she looks back on her life in England.Her memories consist of the tale of a Yankee girl, Irene Dunne as Susan Dunn, who goes on a two week vacation to England with her father and on her last day there meets a member of the English gentry who is instantly smitten by her and talks her into staying and marrying him. At first Susan feels out of her element as Lady Ashwood, but she quickly finds her footing. She and her husband, Sir John Ashwood, don't even have time for a honeymoon as WWI starts and he is off to fight with his regiment. After three years he finally gets a few days leave, but it is long enough to conceive his son, John Ashwood Jr., or John Ashwood II as the British would say.Irene Dunne always gave good subtle performances in parts that could have easily gotten ham-fisted, and this role is no exception. Frank Morgan as her Yankee dad is a revelation as he is for once not the befuddled comic relief but a spirited American father who wants his daughter home in America before her marriage, and safe from the Nazi bombs as the winds of a second war approach. C. Aubrey Smith lends terrific support as Colonel Walter Forsythe, considered a crackpot at the boarding house where he and the Dunns were staying during their trip, because he claims to have a standing invitation to the most exclusive ball in England, but seems to just be a common pensioner. Well it turns out he really can turn pumpkins into carriages after all. Roddy McDowell plays John Jr., and he is smitten by one of the daughters of the tenant farmers on the estate played by a twelve year old Elizabeth Taylor in only her third credited role. Their scenes together are just too cute. As with most of the WWII films there are a few lines and a few scenes that get over the top just a bit. There are the American soldiers marching through the streets of London to rousing patriotic songs played by a military band as the film comes full circle. There are the two German preteens who are friends of John Jr. during the early 1930's who just happen to erupt into Nazi propaganda at the dinner table. I was surprised one of them didn't put a comb under his nose and start imitating the Bohemian corporal. And then there is grief that takes all of 15 seconds in spite of its cruel irony because you just HAVE to keep that stiff upper lip! But it's not overdone for a film that is over two hours long, and it does take that long to do the tale justice.

I am only giving a 5 due to the performance of Irene. But yet again through the years the projection of America as all there is to this world is ridiculous. As if any Scot or Englishman would actually accept the words mentioned in the film. Disgusting. On the other hand its more of a romance novel than a war movie as war is like a sidewalk into this film. The story line overall is nice but it should be filmed in a difference scene than use the theme of war to input this romance story. presenting the power of actors and words in the art of cinema is one thing, but using it as political brainwashing a propaganda is another. As a scene from the film America is a circus just like the band marches when war is announced by them.

An American woman's two-week trip to England becomes a lifetime stay as she marries a British baron. This drama follows the woman through thirty years in England, spanning two world wars. It touches upon the U.S.-U.K. dynamic and has a bit of romance in it, but ultimately it becomes about war.The voice-over poetry came across as cheesy to me and the film ends with a dash of WWII propaganda. A lot of the film is about how Americans and Englishmen don't always see eye-to-eye, but England depends on the aid of its American brethren to defeat the evils of the world (not once, but twice).Irene Dunne plays the woman, with Frank Morgan as her father and Alan Marshal as her beau. Dunne is fine in this purely dramatic role. I also thought it was odd that she was playing a character named Dunn. Be sure to watch out for a 15-year-old Roddy McDowell and a 12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor toward the end.While the film seemed decent enough, if unspectacular, I think the poetry took a little away from it. And it seemed a bit too much like a "chick movie" for my personal tastes.6.5/10

Keep the home fires burning. Emotional and reflective. We need to look back every fifty years or so to look for values. There are a lot of contemporary connections. Look for Roddy McDowell and Elizabeth Taylor. A good picture of the UK in the first half of the last century, even if only through the the eyes of the early forties. Although in large part a sentimental movie, somewhat in the mode of a soap opera, it deals with the larger issues of life on the home-front. It speaks to the twenty-first century where those of us with money have few participating in the military either personally or financially. Irene Dunne carries the action and supports the sentimentality without undue exaggeration. Some really spectacular patriotic sentiment. Look for the bit about the chess set. Compare Susan Dunn's (Irene Dunne's)father-in-law with the Major in Keeping Up Appearances. Frank Morgan offers a nice contrast to the English scene; one would like to visit Toliver, Rhode Island, which would have existed if it could.