The events in the background to this film were the most traumatic of the 20th century - World War I, European revolution, the rise of Communism and Fascism, the Great Depression, the Abyssinia crisis, the Spanish Civil War, Munich and the outbreak of World War II. Yet the families in this film resisted panic and just got on with their lives.
That makes me prouder to be British than any military victory.
The same sort of films were made in America about American families in the same era. Like this film, they reflected the myths about how each nation envisioned itself and its "ordinary people". But myths they were: the realities were very different. People did panic, or become despondent, or suffer other emotional traumas -- depending on whether a particular event affected them personally.
The fact is that, for most of the events you list (and a few you omit), the vast majority of the British public was personally indifferent and, worse, preferred to remain uninvolved.
While the World Wars and the Great Depression obviously affected every Englishman -- along with everybody else on the planet -- most Brits couldn't have cared less about the rise of Communist or Fascist regimes, so long as their own country remained unaffected. They eagerly supported the unstinting efforts of their appeasement-minded governments of the 30s in standing by gutlessly while Italy slaughtered defenseless Ethiopians and later occupied Albania, the Axis bombed Spanish civilians in the Civil War, Germany reoccupied the Rhineland, annexed Austria by murderous force, and -- the apex of British shame -- as Neville Chamberlain, one of the most ignorant, dishonest, dispicable and disastrous leaders of the century, crawled on his hands and knees before Hitler, only too desperate to hand him the Sudetenland for the Fuhrer's promise of "peace" -- something only such a vain and self-absorbed fool as he could have believed meant anything: a crime made worse six months later when Britain stood silently by as Germany finished off the rump of Czechoslovakia.
Of course the people in this film "just got on with their lives". Like most Brits, they didn't care a whit what happened to other peoples...as long as it meant they would be left alone. The wartime (and postwar) revisionist outlook, claiming that most residents of the nation were unhappy about the policies of their government -- which in fact most of them, up to and most decidedly including the Royal Family, had strongly supported -- is a falsehood designed to erase any stigma of responsibility on the part of Britain for the state of events in the world, post-1939.
The British are a great people, but they've had their shameful periods too, as have the people of every nation. The interwar years this film spans were a nadir of British history, mired in reprehensible and self-defeating policies overwhelmingly supported by a fearful and callous public. People "got on with their lives" because they were happy to sell out others to save their own skins -- learning almost too late, and at great cost, that their security depended on that of others.
As to military victories, the British came out on the winning side of both World Wars only due to the intervention of the United States, period. That's not jingoism, just cold, hard truth. And lest I be accused of being merely a nationalistic American, I'm married to a lovely British girl, greatly admire the country in most things, and am duly ashamed and critical of the unjust actions and policies sometimes pursued by my own country.
My purpose is not to single out Britain as unique in this regard, but to puncture the false notion that the people depicted in this film were somehow special or noble. They weren't, and neither were the real citizens of the country at the time. They were just falsified cariacatures of ordinary people, and ordinary people often do bad or ignoble things. So let's stop the nonsense.
Well may you accuse the Chamberlain government of appeasement but tell me, when did FDR's administration issue an ultimatum regarding the Rhineland, Anschluss, the Sudetenland, Poland etc? For that matter, how much pressure did the United States apply in the League of Nations regarding Manchuria or Abyssinia? (that's somewhat of a rhetorical question, naturally).
I think the point the OP was trying to make was that the UK faced lots of the same problems that Germany, Italy and Japan faced and we didn't turn to revolution and/or a rejection of the (however much flawed) democratic model (any more than the US did). True, the average London bus conductor couldn't care a jot about a mudhut in Manchuria as a reason to go to war, any more than would a farmer in Iowa (I'm lifting from Frank Capra there, btw).
I would agree that the UK wouldn't have been one of the winning Allies had the United States not supported us commercially and economically from 1940/1 before finally entering the war in late 1941. The way you phrase it, however, is somewhat offensive, as your wording implies that the UK coasted it on someone else's expenses. We didn't However, I'm not going to engage in a discussion of butchers' bills as to which country had the largest gonads in either world war (which is what usually happens in such discussions).
I have never subscribed to the myth of Britain standing alone in 1940. The Commonwealth and the British Empire played a huge part in 1940/1 (as they did for the whole war). Had it not been for Commonwealth and British Indian forces, we should surely have lost the Middle East (allthe way from Egypt through Suez and Sinai into Iraq) and East Africa to the Italians in 1940; had that happened, Churchill's position would have been untenable which could have led to an armistice. In turn, this would have made a 1941 knockout blow by the Germans at Moscow more likely. And the US could not have won either World War on its own - period.
"Someone has been tampering with Hank's memories."
Everyone appeased the Germans - the Anglo-French, USA, Italy, USSR and for the same reason - not because Germany was run by the nazis but because they were rivals who looked willing to begin another world war. Actually the disaster of 1940 was a bagatelle compared to the loss of the Far Eastern colonies in 1941-1942, that was what cast Britain and the empire into dependence on the USA. Even with the victories of 1940 Germany had not altered the economic arithmetic which made it a wasting asset against a world empire of 500 million people. The British didn't shirk their part in the war but it was dwarfed by 1944 by the USA and USSR
Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.
Since the OP was devoted to this film's portrayal of "ordinary" British people in the interwar years, and was lauding that particular branch of the human race, my comments were quite properly directed at puncturing the myths he blandly accepts. It wasn't a disquisition on the behavior of other peoples.
That said, as I did inject in my previous post, there is much about my country's past that I find unacceptable and embarrassing. What nation, or its people, does not have bad things in its past?
Where was FDR during the crises you mention? Uninvolved, due to American isolationism and the fact that the US was not then the world power it would become. Nothing Roosevelt could have said or done would have had any impact on the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the Munich sell-out, or any other pre-war developments. Further, Chamberlain certainly, and other European leaders as well, dismissed the United States (none of them had ever been to the US or really understood it in other than the most superficial way) and considered that it had no business getting involved with European crises anyway.
Yes, many Americans were isolationist and wanted no part of outside affairs. But that has nothing to do with what's shown in this movie. I would be (and have been) equally critical of films that presented a false portrait of American life, as many did. But that wasn't the subject here.
Also, I actually disagree with you that Britain didn't stand alone in 1940-41. Yes, it had the Commonwealth, but the fact is that those countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, even South Africa) and outright colonies were pulled into war only by virtue of Britain going in; the others for all intents and purposes forfeited their independence and obediently followed Britain's lead. But it was Britain that bore virtually the entirety of the German war effort in '40-'41; to the extent that these other nations were affected it was indirectly, providing manpower and resources, not withstanding bombing attacks from their enemies. Britons deserve the praise they've earned for the staunchness of their actions during that lonely period. That's when the true "nobility" of the British people was on view...not in their attitudes or behavior before the war.
Lastly, I'm sorry you took my words as insulting, as implying that the UK "coasted" to victory on someone else's coattails. That was certainly not intended. Far from it. Britain gave its all, and sacrificed much. For its valor, Britain emerged from the war bankrupt, mismanaged, bombed and exhausted. Yet it is true that Britain alone could never have won the war. Even Churchill recognized this, which is why he was so determined to see America brought into the conflict. During the war, Britain simply did not have the resources or manpower to compete with what the US (or the USSR) could bring to bear. That's not an insult, simply a statement of fact: Britain was a small country with very limited resources, dwarfed by the US and, at least in the size of its armies, the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the British Navy was the most powerful one afloat, at least until the Americans surpassed it in 1942-43, and likewise fought bravely and effectively.
And I never said or implied that the US could have won the war single-handedly...although, when it came to it, it probably could have. It would have taken much longer, been far more costly and difficult, but in the final analysis the US did have the natural and industrial resources and manpower to have ultimately won the war -- by liberal use of the atomic bomb if nothing else. It wouldn't have been "easy", but it could most likely have been done. But thank God we had such gallant and steadfast allies as the Brits. The very obtuseness about foreign affairs that brought the nation the disastrous consequences of appeasement served its people well when war finally came, as the very thought of giving in never occurred to them...any more than the thought of proactively preventing Hitler from getting as far as he did never occurred to them before the war forced their (and everyone's) hands.
I think you are being pretty harsh.
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