Waterloo Road (1945)

Whilst people get nostalgic for a bygone time where supposedly everyone rooted together, conveniently forgetting how much people were in it for themselves and the spiv culture ruled.Here comes a slice of life film that was made when the war was still on. Not sure how this one went past the censor as the subject matter involves an AWOL soldier who wants to find his wife after he gets wind that she is being wooed by a supposedly invalid playboy type draft dodger excellently played by Stewart Granger who is also an ex boxer.Granger is trying to get his wicked ways by spinning whatever yarn he can and showing her a good time. Add to this, some mishaps, John Mills AWOL soldier being pursued by military policemen and a mixture of comedy and drama makes this an easy going gem.There is a rather brutal fight scene at the end and Alistair Sim gives a nice cameo as well as Jean Kent wearing not a lot, not sure what the censor was doing when her scene turned up!

Waterloo Road is sometimes forgotten among the hundreds of films made by the late, great Sir John Mills, but it gave him one of his best roles at a time when British Film studios were churning out a handful of films each week for to satisfy the public.He plays Jim Colter, a former railway employee, now called up who goes AWOL to find Ted Purvis (Stewart Granger), a spiv and draft dodger who is seeing his wife (an excellent performance by Joy Shelton). The action takes place over a single day in, and around, Waterloo Station. In almost social realism style the camera follows the action through real streets, and includes an early amusement arcade (check those machines and the customers), a dance hall, tea shop and a tattoo parlour in a road called 'The Cut'. I watched this with my Mother(now 79)as its her favourite John Mills Film, and she remembers passing by this parlour and seeing the 'tattooed lady' poster when, as a 14 year old shop assistant, she worked at Waterloo Station during the blitz.It is a well crafted film: not many scenes are wasted and the script is tight and balanced between light and serious dialogue. Another surprise is how energetic Mills is. He leaps across tables and through windows like an acrobat. The fight scene is as well filmed and choreographed as any American Film Noir of the time, and even allowing for library clips of the blitz (which can be seen in other wartime films), the bombing sequence is as close to the real thing as the studio could make it.My favourite performance and /or character? Ben Williams playing the hapless Military Policeman Corporal Lewis forever chasing Mills around 'The Cut'. How often are films today enhanced by the Extra Players?

I wonder how daring this film was for wartime with a sympathetic treatment of soldiers AWOL? Also unfaithful wifes, a worry to many soldiers, the ones that weren't frollicking with girls in liberated countries of course. My interest were lots of authentic outdoor scenes in wartime London. Only criticism was the requirement for the cad to be doubly punished!! (Villains had to be seen to punished for it to get by the censor). Alister Sims seemed menacing even though he was playing a good guy.

"Waterloo Road" deserves to be better known than it is. If, like me, you were born after the war, it is a fascinating glimpse of a time gone by, but don't watch it for that alone. It is a story about ordinary people in wartime, without heroics and melodrama, but with an abundance of character and incident. The characters struck me as being true to life, and I didn't find a jarring line of dialogue or a scene which dragged. John Mills gave a fine performance as a soldier gone AWOL, and Stewart Granger as the cad out to seduce his wife. All in all, a wonderful little film.