John Boxer Movies

In this family comedy, the life of a suburban clan is disrupted when they learn that two old friends are coming to call. The house is thrown into a tizzy as they struggle to prepare. One of the three brothers then chooses an inopportune moment to announce that he is planning to marry the maid. The cook then organizes a kitchen strike. Finally things settle down, and the household is ready to entertain the esteemed guests -- they never show up. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Having underestimated Hitler in the 1930s, British propaganda specialists spent the early war years insisting they were prepared for any international contingency. Big Blockade was a morale-boosting film produced in cooperation with the Ministry of Economic Welfare. In documentary fashion, the film underlines the importance of the economic blockade which Britain directed against Germany. An all-star cast (Michael Redgrave, Leslie Banks, John Mills, Robert Morley etc.) appears in brief sketches dramatizing the effect of the blockade and the reactions of the British public. While it received good reviews at the time, The Big Blockade quickly fell out of favor once it served its wartime purpose. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Few morale-boosting wartime films have retained their power and entertainment value as emphatically as Noël Coward's In Which We Serve. To witness Coward's sober, no-nonsense direction (in collaboration with his co-director/editor, David Lean) and to watch his straightforward portrayal of navy captain Kinross, one would never suspect that he'd built his theatrical reputation upon sophisticated drawing-room comedies and brittle, witty song lyrics. The real star of In Which We Serve is the British destroyer Torrin. Torpedoed in battle, the Torrin miraculously survives, and is brought back to English shores to be repaired. The paint is barely dry and the nuts and bolts barely in place before the Torrin is pressed into duty during the Dunkirk evacuation. The noble vessel is finally sunk after being dive-bombed in Crete, but many of the crew members survive. As they cling to the wreckage awaiting rescue, Coward and his men flash back to their homes and loved ones, and, in so doing, recall anew just why they're fighting and for whom they're fighting. Next to Coward, the single most important of the film's characters is Shorty Blake, played by John Mills. (Trivia note: Mills' infant daughter Juliet Mills appears as Shorty's baby.) Even so, the emphasis in the film is on teamwork; here as elsewhere, there can be no stars in wartime. For many years, the only prints available to television were from the bowdlerized American version, which crudely cut out all "hells" and "damns." Fortunately, this eviscerated American release has since been shelved in favor of the full, glorious 115-minute version. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Millions Like Us is a fundamentally honest dramatization of the British "home front" during World War II. Patricia Roc plays a worker in a defense plant who lives in an all-female rooming house. Shy and sheltered, Roc loses some of her inhibitions when she falls in love with an airman (Gordon Jackson). After they marry, he is killed in battle. Roc's coworkers and friends rally round her, giving her the strength to persevere. Millions Like Us attempts to show the temporary breakdown of the British class structure during the war, with everyone--highborn to low--pitching in, working together, and bolstering one another's morale. That the old social system would inevitably resume after the war wasn't important to British movie fans, who lined up in droves to see Millions Like Us. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's much-lauded epic Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, which satirizes British traditionalism, stirred up impassioned hostilities and indignations among the Brits when released in 1943. It so infuriated Winston Churchill, in fact, that he refused to allow its exportation to other countries, particularly the U.S. When Blimp finally did premiere in the States in 1945, it screened in a drastically cut version. The sweeping story covers several decades. It begins at the tail end of the Boer War, when handsome young British officer Clive Candy, recently back from the battlefront, is infuriated by his discovery that Deutschland papers have played up the British atrocities in South Africa, propagandistically. He grows so irate, in fact, that he travels to Germany to address the problem. Once there, he meets an attractive British educator, Edith Hunter (Deborah Kerr) who spends her days teaching English as a second language to German students. They grow close, but Candy so aggravates the local indigenes that he winds up in a duel with a German officer, Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook). The men wound each other and are sent to the same hospital, where they become friends. Candy - who doesn't yet realize he's fallen in love with Edith -- senses that Theo and Edith are attracted to one another, and encourages the couple's marital union. Candy subsequently returns to England, then falls for and marries Barbara (again played by Kerr), a nurse who bears a strong resemblance to Edith. She later dies, but Candy meets a third woman during WWII, Johnny (Kerr a third time), assigned to drive him from one locale to another during his campaigns. Meanwhile, Theo - disgusted by Nazi atrocities -- absconds to England, where he reencounters his old friend, now a prattering old shuffler rapidly approaching the end of his career and raving continuously about Nazi conduct (or lack thereof) in battle. Powell and Pressberger adapted Colonel Blimp from a comic strip; it became one of the hallmarks of their careers. ~ Sidney Jenkins, All Movie Guide

This 1949 British film told a very plausible story about a triangle between a woman, her soldier husband, and her new lover. Jim Colter (John Mills) has joined the services, leaving his wife Tillie (Joy Shelton) with his mother (Beatrice Varley) and sister. Tillie is lonely, meets Ted Purvis (Stewart Granger), and falls for him. It turns
out that Purvis is a small-time crook and swindler and falsified his medical records in order to avoid serving in the war. Jim finds out about the affair and deserts the war to return home and settle matters. But he is set upon and beaten by Purvis' hoodlum buddies. Unchastened, Jim goes after Purvis, and they engage in a climactic fist fight as bombs are dropping during a Nazi air raid. The entire story is played out against the noisy backdrop of a country at war. It was based on a story by director Sidney Gilliat. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Assembled by the reliable team of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, London Belongs to Me stars Richard Attenborough as a young, full-of-beans boy looking for fun. Bursting into a staid, wearisome London neighborhood, Attenborough exhorts the others to get some kicks out of life. Unfortunately, his search for thrills gets him involved in a murder. Just when you think that the film is a dour "slice of life" drama, a new comic element is introduced as the locals start up a petition to release Attenborough from jail. The presence of Alastair Sim in the cast should have tipped us off that London Belongs to Me wasn't meant to be taken entirely seriously. The film was released in the US as Dulcimer Street. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Anticipating The Defiant Ones by nearly ten years, the British My Brother's Keeper concentrates on the exploits of two handcuffed-together escaped convicts. The protagonists are career criminal George Martin (Jack Warner) and terrified "first timer" Willie Stannard (George Cole). The film is one long chase, with a brief respite to establish the relationship between Martin and his girlfriend Nora Lawrence (Jane Hylton). Despite the fact that they're polar opposites, George and Willie develop a grudging friendship and dependence upon one another, broken only by the events in the final scenes. Director Alfred Roome's utilization of actual exterior locations adds a great deal of credibility to the story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, two soldiers find themselves dishonorably discharged after they accidently allow a Nazi prisoner to escape. Later they open up a detective agency. They are constantly plagued by the Nazi who follows them on every case. In the climax, the trio plays a crazy cricket match using a ball with a diamond hidden within it. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Henry Devere Stacpoole's lyrical novel The Blue Lagoon was rather chastely filmed in 1921. The 1949 remake is a tad more explicit, though it's hardly as racy as the 1980 Brooke Shields version. Two British children, Emmeline (Susan Stranks) and Michael (Peter Jones), are shipwrecked on a tropical island in the company of kindly old salt Paddy Button (Noel Purcell). Eventually, Paddy dies, leaving Emmeline and Michael, now attractively grown up and played by Jean Simmons and Donald Houston, all alone. Their relationship, more along the lines of brother and sister in their youth, blossoms into love, and then passion. Emmeline has a baby, and the two live as common-law husband and wife, content in their solitude..until.. Filmed in lush Technicolor, The Blue Lagoon was considered fairly exotic and somewhat risque back in 1949, though by current standards the film is a model of decorum. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A battle of the sexes begins to rage in an isolated private school in this charming British comedy. Just outside of London during World War II, Axis bombing forces the evacuation of a private all-girls school, St. Swithins. Thanks to a bureaucratic mix-up, the girls of St. Swithins and their Headmistress Muriel Whitchurch (Margaret Rutherford) are to be billeted at the nearby Nutborne Boys School. While the students learn to make do with the crowded conditions, Nutborne headmaster Wetherby Pond (Alistair Sim) is less than pleased with the situation, especially after he and Whitchurch begin butting heads over which of them is truly in charge. The Happiest Days Of Your Life was based on a popular stage comedy by playwright John Dighton. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This early nuclear satire offers a twisted retelling of the old fairy tale "The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg." The story begins as two American newlyweds move to live on an English farm recently inherited by the husband. Unaccustomed to the ways of British country auctions, the husband accidentally buys five dozen ducks. One of those ducks lays radioactive eggs, and eventually the entire farm must be quarantined by the military. Branches of the military then begin fighting over possession of the little quacker. In the end, they all grab the wrong one. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Bridge on the River Kwai opens in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Burma in 1943, where a battle of wills rages between camp commander Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) and newly arrived British colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness). Saito insists that Nicholson order his men to build a bridge over the river Kwai, which will be used to transport Japanese munitions. Nicholson refuses, despite all the various "persuasive" devices at Saito's disposal. Finally, Nicholson agrees, not so much to cooperate with his captor as to provide a morale-boosting project for the military engineers under his command. The colonel will prove that, by building a better bridge than Saito's men could build, the British soldier is a superior being even when under the thumb of the enemy. As the bridge goes up, Nicholson becomes obsessed with completing it to perfection, eventually losing sight of the fact that it will benefit the Japanese. Meanwhile, American POW Shears (William Holden), having escaped from the camp, agrees to save himself from a court martial by leading a group of British soldiers back to the camp to destroy Nicholson's bridge. Upon his return, Shears realizes that Nicholson's mania to complete his project has driven him mad. Filmed in Ceylon, Bridge on the River Kwai won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for the legendary British filmmaker David Lean, and Best Actor for Guinness. It also won Best Screenplay for Pierre Boulle, the author of the novel on which the film was based, even though the actual writers were blacklisted writers Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, who were given their Oscars under the table. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide