14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly relevant today, April 17, 2006
This review is from: This Land Is Mine (DVD)
The movie told of the early days of a small town in France under German occupation. How the townsfolk responded and reacted to the shrewd and manipulative German leadership? For one, the mayor and the business owners were speculators and still made good money out of the situation. To the middle class, like the railway executive George (George Sanders), peace was so important that they cooperated with the Germans as much as they disliked them. For most folks, they made do with the scarcity of food and milk by paying a hefty price for petty portions in the black market. Still underground resistance came from the educators (the Jewish headmaster and the beloved school teacher Louise (Maureen O'Hara)), who ensured that the seed of freedom was uninhibited in the minds of the school children, and also the pragmatists, who printed propagandas and orchestrated sabotage.
The one who made the complete transformation was the older school teacher Albert Lory (Charles Laughton) - a mama's boy who was terrified by air raid, choked by smoking a cigarette, shook before the Germans and unable to declare his love for Louise. His unflattering face, timidity and senior age gave him a big handicap; he was an impossible candidate for a hero. Yet impossibilities are improbable possibilities in desperate times. Imprisoned for allegedly throwing a bomb, released but then accused of being an informant for the Germans, being put in a murder trial and offered his freedom by the German if he played properly his new role as the new headmaster. Mr. Lory was relieved for this arrangement until he saw the end of the highly respectable former headmaster. Hereafter, a hero was born.
Charles Laughton not only made the change plausible, he amplified and emphasized it with his superb acting. To his credit, Mr. Lory was as cowardly then as he was heroic now. The two speeches Charles Laughton made in the murder trial, before and after the German's offer, epitomized their lives under the German occupation. His last lesson, albeit a short one, to the school children was his one chance to win them over - for the future of the country lay in their hands. And he delivered the message across the classroom with conviction and power, as only a hero could.
Thanks to the director and the script, Mr. Lory underwent change not because of his love for Louise but for his country. He needed not be handsome and young to be the leading hero, as present movies would undoubtedly prefer. Maureen O'Hara, as Louise, lent her good sense, strength of character and beauty to make the heroine complete. Una O'Connor, as Mrs. Lory who betrayed a young man for his son's freedom, was impeccable.
More to that, Mr. Lory accused the mayor who, even though from poor background, once assumed power, was reluctant to relinquish what he had at the expense of their countrymen. How true this still is from developing to developed countries all over the world. Should countrymen resort to sabotage so that foreign occupiers were engaged at all fronts and stretched thin? This is a double-edged sword which could work against the evil as well as the peacekeeping force. This is a movie who raised provoking questions rather than offering solutions.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Undeservedly Obscure WWII Gem..., November 1, 2011
This review is from: This Land Is Mine (DVD)
Often dismissed today as flag-waving wartime "filler," this underrated 1943 drama builds to an emotional finale that's as understated as it is compelling. Modern charges of preachiness, datedness and propagandistic are not only unfair, but ultimately pointless. Almost every character is "shaded," unlike those portrayed in real propaganda movies. None are simplistic or caricatured, not even the villains. Indeed, the film makes a point of showing that everyone is, in reality, "two people." Made during a time of worldwide chaos and upheaval, the thoughtful and intelligent screenplay by Dudley Nichols is just as relevant today as it was 70 years ago.
The film asks an audacious, unflinching question: Is it worth the lives of the innocent to combat tyranny and oppression? THIS LAND IS MINE doesn't pretend to have easy answers - but it does have a point of view, and makes its case very well. I found the final scene in which a transformed schoolmaster bids farewell to his young class of future citizens both honest and unexpectedly moving. Never has a reading of The DECLARATION Of The RIGHTS Of MAN sounded more eloquent, carried more conviction or packed such an emotional wallop.
This film deserves to be better known. Forget what the "experts" say, and give it a chance. Lastly, the stellar quality of the film's celebrated star, director and supporting cast of veteran character actors goes without saying.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another courage expression and dignity!, January 8, 2008
This review is from: This Land Is Mine (DVD)
This title is frequently forgotten or at least overlooked, at the moment to make a whole account about the major films of the master Jean Renoir. This is an epic portrait about a simple French professor who overtly emerges as a hero before the Nazis in plain German besiege. As always the giant Charles Laughton delights us with his monumental performance.
This movie won an Academy Award as Best Sound in 1943.
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