Rent The Day Will Dawn (1942)

War Propaganda. - The Day Will Dawn review by Steve

British B directors also did their duty on the propaganda front in WWII, armed with newsreel footage and small budgets. Their films were made quickly on limited studio sets, but often there was talent available, working for the cause. Harold French’s film is the best of these, with a good script co-written by Terence Rattigan.

With the war going poorly these films often dwelt on the European resistance. This is set in Norway with Hugh Williams as a dilettante reporter who gets it together to attack German U-boats harboured in the fjords, The familiar story gets stuck in morale boosting rhetoric early on but is dealt a shot of adrenaline at half way as Hugh parachutes back to lead the underground.

Williams is an insipid lead, but there’s a pre-stardom Deborah Kerr, and Ralph Richardson in a conspicuous cameo. British films could always count on a good cast of support actors, and Finlay Currie stands out as tough but paternal sea captain. Francis Sullivan plays yet another sadistic Nazi. The war is in its fourth year, and the screen Germans are now much more ruthless.

Due to budget constraints, most of the action takes place off screen. Curiously, the film ends with a British invasion of Norway that never happened. But maybe this fiction gave the home front more hope than reality could. Today, the strength of the wartime B films is that they betray a feeling of national anxiety. Everything is still to be fought for.