Kirpianuscus great film. maybe, this word not sounds convincing but it is the truth. because it is a patriotic manifesto who gives a credible story of love, war, vulnerability and courage. and gives to Charles Laughton to do a splendid work. if you do not ignore the year when it was made and the nuances who define the drama, it is a remarkable film. because it has the virtue to impose a theme who seems to o pathetic, old or bizarre in contemporary context as actual. and this is the clue - it is more a film. the artistic virtues are only tools who serve a noble idea. and this fact defines its importance. because the touching story of resistance against enemy becomes, scene by scene, useful answer to challenges from our time, as remember about the essence of heroic virtues.

Alex da Silva This film is set in a fictional occupied town and follows the town's acquiescence to the takeover as headed by Nazi Walter Slezak (von Keller). Only a handful rebel against this new order - headmaster Philip Merivale (Sorel) and signalman Kent Smith (Paul) are two that do. Are their efforts in vain? Can wimpish schoolteacher Charles Laughton (Albert) make a difference? Laughton is watchable as always and very underplayed in this effort whilst his mother Una O'Connor (Mrs Lory) is way over-the-top. The interaction between these two throughout the film makes for very uncomfortable viewing as they cuddle each other in a grotesquely incestuous manner. Laughton, playing a mummy's boy, is just too creepy. A man of his age should not be cuddling up to his mother in this way and O'Connor plays a comedy psychopathically obsessed mother who has serious mental issues when it comes to bonding. She is awful and will have you screaming for her to get killed.As for the rest of the cast, they all do fine and there are a few good sequences to keep you watching. Kent Smith keeps the action going with his antics, Railway owner George Sanders (George) keeps the treachery in first gear as he behaves just as you would expect him to, although he does seem to develop a consciousness with fatal results. Schoolteacher Maureen O'Hara (Louise) puts in a solid performance but here is something that most people seem to miss. She is meant to be the object of Laughton's desire. Hold on, look at his behaviour……..he's gay!! He obsesses rather unhealthily over Philip Merivale's character not over Maureen O'Hara. I can't believe that no-one has mentioned this lust he has for the headmaster. It is so blatant. Laughton's mummy boy character is a homosexual, and he only loves O'Hara in the same way as gays love Kylie Minogue. Fact. If this is not the case, then this film demonstrates rubbish acting as Laughton's character just defies belief. He also coughs way too much on having his first cigarette.Also, just remember this, the land is never yours or ours, there is always someone who owns it and will want to fine you for trespassing. Even for my freehold property, they can dig underneath me and start fracking.

big_O_Other I found this gem of a movie on television. Charles Laughton was outstanding. He conveyed perfectly the thesis of the film: that Nazism and the New World Order depended on corrupting those they occupied, tempting them with rewards for betraying their fellow countrymen more than even the brutal intimidation we are all familiar with.I was also quite interested to see the collaboration between the big industrialists and the Nazis, who corrupted them by catering to their anti-unionism. The fact that being against unions was a pillar of Nazi ideology has not been well known, but Renoir's film made it crystal clear.All the performances were well above par; Sanders played the self-seeking weasel who has a change of conscience very well, in a very legible, nuanced way. Maureen O'Hara was also excellent, as always.But it was Charles Laughton, standing before the collaborators, Nazis and his own mother as he comes to realize how crucial the Rights of Man are to living decently and honorably, who wins the day.

Igenlode Wordsmith There are a number of very good performances in this picture -- Laughton, for one (an actor who was never afraid to present himself, when necessary, as both ludicrous and repulsive, but who manages to conjure up hidden depths in the same character), but also George Sanders, who supplies a sensitive portrayal of a man who just wants everything to run smoothly... until he discovers that one cannot stop at only one betrayal. Walter Slezak channels Francis L. Sullivan ("Pimpernel Smith") in the role of a corpulent, intelligent Nazi, Philip Merivale makes a convincingly idealistic headmaster, and, unexpectedly, Una O'Conner is surprisingly effective as the hero's fierce old mother. The performance slips occasionally into more familiar grotesquerie, but the vital element of fanaticism is well conveyed: this is a mother who will do anything for what she sees as her helpless lamb, even if her ideas of what is in his best interest do not always concur with his own.Maureen O'Hara -- so memorable as Esmeralda to Laughton's 1939 Quasimodo -- I found to be less convincing here. I'm not sure if that's the fault of the actress or the character; her delivery of lines when she discovers the truth about her brother is particularly cringe-making, alas. Kent Smith, meanwhile, is played more or less as a bland all-American hero: his best lines (and acting moments) come in the confrontation scene with George Sanders, although for most of the film it's hard to realise that the two men, so different in seniority (Sanders is a high-ranking official in charge of the whole goods yard, possibly the whole station: Smith is only a duty signalman under him, and appears at least ten years younger, although the two actors were almost the same age) and in character, are supposed to be close friends. The chase sequences involving Smith's character are successfully gripping.But my major problem with the film is that it's just too blatantly preaching to the audience. The broad colloquial Americanisms, though they jolt in such a Continental setting, are understandable in a US-produced film aimed at the home market: but the all too obvious Hollywood-type propaganda elements damage the film by seriously wounding its plausibility. Characters make speeches that are clearly aimed at convincing the audience back home rather than at influencing their fellow-characters: the doctrine of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is preached. The moral is punched home with a sledge-hammer.