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    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1950s
    Movies - 1950s Movies - D 3 Mins Read

    Dunkirk (1958)

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    The most ambitious Ealing film during the MGM period was Dunkirk, directed by Leslie Norman, with a script which fused a factual account by Ewan Butler with a novel, The Big Pick-Up, by Elleston Trevor.

    The screenplay was the work of W. P. Lipscomb, with David Divine, a journalist experienced in military affairs and history. It follows the pattern of examining a major event, in this case, the rescue of the British army from the French coast in May 1940, by focusing on a small group – a band of soldiers whose officer has been killed and who are now led by a reluctant corporal (John Mills).

    Because Dunkirk is the story of a defeat, though a heroic one, the film has an air of anti-climax, understatement and gritted teeth.

    There is no flinching from the fact that what is shown is a military disaster and a journalist who helps in the rescue spends much time criticising the brass hats and their conduct of the war which has led to this shambling mess.

    There is a problem in weaving the individual stories into the larger tapestry of the battle itself; the familiar newsreel and press photograph images of lines of troops snaking through the water from beach to boat, the debris of discarded vehicles, weapons and supplies left behind on the sands, the smoke and tumult of battle are vividly reconstructed, but the insertion of John Mills and his half-dozen men has an awkwardness that diminishes the conviction of the larger set piece.

    The subject of Dunkirk was perhaps an appropriate one for Ealing, which had made an early name in the area of war films when the Second World War had actually been raging.

    Few such films had been made in the Fifties, The Cruel Sea (1953) being the other notable exception. Both films were in a sense concerned not with the glamorous, heroic side of war, but with the wearying, dispiriting absurdity of it, the pointless waste of human resources.

    Dunkirk, the story of a retreat and a defeat, was Ealing’s last opportunity to portray a certain idiosyncratic greatness in the British character.

    Corporal ‘Tubby’ Bins
    John Mills
    Charles Foreman 

    Bernard Lee 
    John Holden 

    Richard Attenborough 
    Private Mike

    Robert Urquhart 
    Private Barlow

    Ray Jackson 
    Private Dave Bellman

    Meredith Edwards
    Jouvet 

    Michael Shillo 
    Frankie

    Sean Barrett 
    Diana Foreman

    Maxine Audley 
    Lt. Lumpkin

    Kenneth Cope
    Private Fraser

    Denys Graham
    Don R

    Barry Foster 
    Private Miles 

    Ronald Hines 
    Private Harper 

    Roland Curram
    General Viscount Gort, VC

    Cyril Raymond
    Vice-Admiral Ramsey 

    Nicholas Hannen
    Grace Holden

    Patricia Plunkett 
    Froome

    Michael Bates
    Pannet

    Rodney Diak
    Old Sweet

    Fred Griffiths
    Joe

    Dan Gressy
    Dr. Lt. Levy

    Harry Landis

    Director
    Leslie Norman

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