Word: gilliat
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Road (Gainsborough; Eagle Lion), made for British home consumption some four years ago, is just being released in the U.S. A warmly entertaining little picture, it proves that a good director and a sound story can make an unpretentious production gleam with humanity, humor and sharp characterizations. Director Sidney Gilliat has proved this point before (in Green for Danger, The Adventuress, etc.). This time he manages it with the tale of a young couple (John Mills and Joy Shelton) in wartime England...
While the husband is away in the army, his wife is chased by a slightly mangy wolf (Stewart Granger) full of bad intentions. Gilliat's sympathy for all the people caught in this grade B triangle gives it the look of pathos. He softens contempt for the villain by proving him to be as much an unhappy fool as he is a rascal. When the hero's sister writes a tattling letter, Gilliat balances the tattler's meanness with a compassionate picture of her miserable marriage. Besides endowing his work with warmth and humanity, Director Gilliat knows...
...rake (Rex Harrison) is an amiable, Noel Cowardish sort of cad whose inability to take anything very seriously causes no end of trouble to himself, his employers, his family, his chums and his ladyfriends. As played by Actor Harrison and manipulated by writers-directors-producers Frank Launder and Sydney Gilliat (one of Mr. Rank's brighter young production teams), the rake's fast, downhill progress is topnotch fun with a pleasant British accent. The fun holds up, and so does the picture, until all the actors suddenly wipe the smiles off their faces at the end and admit...