Waterloo Road (1945) - film review

London, 1940. Not long after his marriage to Tillie, Jim Colter is enlisted in the fight against Nazi Germany.  Whilst Jim is away, Tillie falls under the spell of Ted Purvis, a womanising spiv who managed to evade being called up.  As soon as he hears of his wife’s infidelity, Jim deserts from the army and returns to London...

Waterloo Road was the third in a loose trilogy of low key wartime films directed by Sidney Gilliat and produced by Edward Black for Gainsborough Pictures.  It followed Millions Like Us (1944) and Two Thousand Women (1944).  Gilliat would go on to achieve greater success through his partnership with Frank Launder, with such films as The Rake’s Progress (1945), The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan (1953) and The Belles of St. Trinian’s (1954).

As well as being a poignant, well-scripted melodrama, convincingly played by John Mills and Stewart Granger, the film offers a realistic picture of how life was in London at the time of the Blitz.  What is perhaps most surprising for anyone watching the film today is how unperturbed everyone in the film is by the wartime drama they are living through.  The mood of quite resignation and acceptance of the daily reality of air raid sirens and bombings is hard to comprehend and provides an insight into the famous Blitz spirit that helped to see Britain through the war.  Waterlood Road is an engaging little film which deserves much wider recognition that it currently enjoys.

© James Travers 2008

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