MovieChat Forums > The Way Ahead (1945) Discussion > A great film,it still happens

A great film,it still happens


This is a great film,I don't think it means much to people without a British history obsession like me but I find this film moving and entertaining.

My father was a conscript in 1940 and my mother was in the Land Army so films like this are the story of my family and my country.

This film might seem unrealistic but Britain did take people from all walks of life and make them a powerful army.
Britain had no conscription until 1939 hence the negative attitude of the recruits,the peacetime army had a poor image and the popular view was that British equipment was rubbish,it was important to get people to respect their New Model Army.

The class structure in Britain was much relaxed in war time,people really did invite strangers who were soldiers into their home.
(This happened to my father in 1940 in Hull)
The whole nation united to fight the enemy,women were conscripted and many more did volunteer work.
Meanwhile in Germany they never conscripted women and there were thousands of nazi party officials wandering about doing little for the war effort.

Of course times change but I work in a railway station and see spotty kids coming to join the army and see them a few weeks later going home as men and on their way to becoming soldiers.

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I agree that the attitude towards class structure during WWII was very relaxed. People from different backgrounds became mixed in the factories, on the farms and in the civil services, such as air raid wardens and the fire service. Many people at the time thought that the attitude of "equality" would continue after the war, but this was not to be so until much later. Also, after the war, women who had shown again that they could work alongside men in many jobs were ordered home to make way for demobilised men.

My father, who was in the RAF, was also invited with his mates to have afternoon tea with a local lady in her big house. However this was in Singapore and, therefore, the subsequent period was spent in a POW camp.

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Yes it is true that women went back home after the war but this was only part of the story.
The women's job were not protected but nor did all they all stop working.
The role of women had changed but many of them wanted to stop working and have kids but later on they would go back to work.
Some historians such as Derdrie Beddode (think that is her name,she wrote a book called BACK TO HOME AND DUTY)think there was some sort of anti female conspiracy,but this was written from a 1980s perspective.

After reading a review of that book I had a conversation with a women who was wearing a WAAF badge on her way to a reunion.
I work in the railway industry and was helping her onto a train,she was an old lady,she said that after sleeping in cold tents next to an airfield helping the man who became her husband repair Spitfires by 1945 she was fed up with being a working women and she and many of her friends wanted to be family women.

It is sad that the wartime spirit of cooperation did not continue as strongly after the war.

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MY mother working on the buses in Birkenhead,(Her route included the docks) said that on VE day some of colleages just jumped off their buses and went home never to return.

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I love this movie (and the whole genre). Though I'm a child of the 70s, my parents were very much 'of the war'. I was brought up on tales of rationing, the Home Guard, 'if the invader comes' etc etc etc. Great stuff!

"Someone has been tampering with Hank's memories."

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I really enjoy the sisters getting stuck in with the hatchets, pistols and rifles....;O)

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

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You have the wrong film.

I am a four eyed evil genius.

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I think you're talking about Went the Day Well ;)

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The men were guaranteed their jobs back.

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