a b Brown G. Launder and Gilliat, quoted in Programme book for Made in London Early Evening Films at the Museum of London (Museum of London and The National Film Archive), 24th season, 1992.

Just after returning to the factory, they find furnished rooms nearby to set up house together, but then Fred is killed in a bombing raid over Germany. Celia receives the news while working at the factory and at a mealtime shortly afterwards the band plays Waiting at the Church, without realising it had been played at Celia's wedding reception. About to break down, Celia is comforted by her fellow workers, as bombers from Fred's squadron overfly the factory en route to another raid.Ditto 'Millions Like Us' by another talented duo. Launder and Gilliat, well established as scriptwriters, ventured into feature direction (the only time they took a joint credit) with this episodic and fascinating study of life on the home front. Rumours of war on the wireless are exchanged for dance music on the other channel. Patriotism does not visibly improve among the younger generation once hostilities begin. One daughter is man-mad, entertaining the troops not wisely but too well; another whose husband is serving in the Western Desert is a lazy, grumbling, neglectful mother. The old dad (Moore Marriott, gruff and unrecognisable as the antic dotard of the Will Hay classics) does his bit in the Home Guard but moans inconsolably about being 'deserted' by his daughters when the country whisks them away. When you watch a film made in 1943 you realise, they had no idea how things would play out. Or for how long. The constant fear of invasion and the Blitz (the V1 and V2s would soon start landing on the citizens of Britain.) was gone and they had to stay focused and sacrifice and fight for...how long? Amazing people. And this movie gives such a delightful view of the great leveling that took place in both world wars efforts. Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge.

Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat shared a directing credit for their debut in that capacity, a film that looks at the effect of World War II on ordinary British people (especially women), where anyone could be called up and pressed into service. The film was originally intended as a documentary for the Ministry of Information but then their film division suggested it be done as a fictional movie and the project was produced at Gainsborough Studios. Screenwriters Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat decided to share direction, both recording their debuts in that capacity. They afterwards felt that having two directors had often confused the actors. They continued to collaborate on scriptwriting and production but directed individually. [2] [3] [4] A film about and for women in the workplace may sound like a step forward from the usual patriarchal portrayal of the female sex. Yet, at its heart this is a deeply conservative film. Ultimately Celia finds fulfillment with and through a man and whilst the companionship of women is important, all the female characters are searching for a husband.

Tawny Pipit (1944)

The success of Millions Like Us led to two ‘follow-up’ films in 1944 – Two Thousand Women and Waterloo Road. Fearing her father's disapproval if she moves away from home, Celia hesitates about joining up but eventually her call-up papers arrive. Hoping to join the WAAF or one of the other services, Celia instead gets posted to a factory making aircraft components, where she meets her co-workers, including her Welsh room-mate Gwen Price and the vain upper middle-class Jennifer Knowles. Knowles dislikes the work they have to do at the factory, causing friction with their supervisor Charlie Forbes which eventually blossoms into a verbally combative romance. Millions Like Us was, according to the film Director Paul Rotha, completely based on his film Night Shift. Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat claim never to have seen Night Shift. Bigger characters provide a light in which to notice how unassuming Celia and Fred matter to us. Jennifer (Anne Crawford) and Charlie (Eric Portman) play out a side-story, asking what role this war will have in breaking down the classes as the Great War had before it and, with strange prescience, it is the aspiring, salt-of-the-earth Charlie who will not commit to girl-about-town Jenny, foreshadowing the real-world Labour landslide two years later when the have-nots established themselves. While I could mention of any of the supporting players, I shall finish with the low-key comedy of Celia's father Jim (Moore Marriott) and the forever train-travelling double-act of Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, keeping austere Britain from being sombre.

A nearby RAF bomber station sends some of its men to a staff dance at the factory, during which Celia meets and falls in love with an equally shy young Scottish flight sergeant Fred Blake. Their relationship encounters a crisis when Fred refuses to tell Celia when he is sent out on his first mission, but soon afterwards they meet and make up, with Fred asking Celia to marry him. After the wedding they spend their honeymoon at the same south coast resort as the Crowsons went to in 1939, finding it much changed with minefields and barbed wire defending against the expected German invasion. Jim Crowson (played by Moore Marriott joins the Home Guard. One of his daughters, Phyllis, joins the Auxillary Territorial Service whilst his other daughter Celia (played by Patricia Roc) is encouraged by her father to stay at home and look after him. She fears her father’s disapproval if she moves away from home but has desires on joining one of the more glamorous service options; instead she is called up to work in an aircraft factory. Initially disappointed, she soon enjoys the camaraderie, meets people from all walks of life and makes new friends. a b Millions Like Us, In: Programme book for Made in London Early Evening Films at the Museum of London (Museum of London and The National Film Archive), 24th season, 1992. My father recruited workers in Missouri and Oklahoma for an ordinance plant during the war. Most of the workers he recruited--whom he personally put on trains headed north--were women who were happy to leave those depressed areas for higher pay, excitement and contribution to the war effort. Women were glad to go to work in factories, and in 1945 they were happy to give it up for marriage and so returning soldiers could have jobs. That's just the way it was then, and one can't put a different spin on how people behaved.

Launder and Gilliat’s brief in making Millions Like Us was clearly propaganda led in making factory work for women appear in as positive a light as possible. From the Four Corners in 1941 - a 15 minute non-combat film celebrating the contributions made by Commonwealth Allies.

The acting, especially in the home sequences, is low-key in the same manner as Lean's 'This Happy Breed'. A far cry from the stagey histrionics of pre-war British cinema, it anticipates the naturalism of TV drama. There are no big speeches or characters, just commonplace folk muddling through. The interpolation of Naunton and Wayne, whom L&G had made a crosstalk team in 'The Lady Vanishes', is the only concession to a 1930s conception of entertainment.Fortunataely, the Daily Mail gave a DVD of the film away free in early 2009, so getting hold of a copy should not be too hard for folks in reach of a British charity shop. I don't know if the DVD is region-restricted, so readers in other parts of the world may have greater difficulty getting a copy if this. The one performance I did enjoy, was that of Moore Marriott as the father of the family in question. He is mainly in the earlier portion of this movie but he is the one to remember. Millions Like Us" is an awfully good film because it is so incredibly ordinary and simple. That's because it's goal is to provide a snapshot of what life was like for seemingly ordinary women during WWII. It follows one woman in particular, but you also see quite a bit about the other women and their lives as well--and is an invaluable documentary-like look into the WWII era. Anne Crawford's a sexy thing used who's been around. She's not taking to factory work at all, but in spite of herself and in spite of himself, she's taking nicely to factory foreman Eric Portman and he, her.