Fri 25 Feb 2022
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: WATERLOO ROAD (1945).
Posted by Steve under Films: Drama/Romance , Reviews[4] Comments
WATERLOO ROAD. Gainsborough, UK, 1945. John Mills, Stewart Granger, Alastair Sim, Joy Shelton, and Alison Leggatt. Written & directed by Sidney Gilliat. Currently available on YouTube.
Sidney Gilliat’s credits include thrillers like The Lady Vanishes, Bulldog Jack, Night Train to Munich, The Green Man and many others, so with him at the helm this promises to be a witty, fast-paced and suspenseful yarn. It doesn’t disappoint. Waterloo Road (set in 1941 at the height of the Blitz) crackles with movement and tension, even though there’s very little actual criminal activity, mostly done by the hero of the piece.
Said hero is Private Jim Colton, ably played by John Mills in his usual unassuming way, albeit a bit handier with his fists than usual. When Colton hears that his wife Tillie (Joy Shelton) has been running around with spiv Ted Purvis (a slick job by rising star Stewart Granger) he goes AWOL in London to check things out for himself.
That’s not a terribly promising start for a thriller, but Gilliat fills the slender tale with fast-paced foot chases as Colton eludes the MPs, tense encounters with Purvis’ thuggish associates, and he backs it up with some colorful smaller parts, ably written and played: Alastair Sim fits in quite suitably as the moral anchor of the tale, and Joy Shelton conveys the complexity of a lonely woman missing her husband and sorely tempted by Granger’s patently phony charm as Gilliat cross-cuts neatly between Colton’s search for Purvis and Purvis’ simultaneous moves on the Missus, each building suspense in its own way. And when the pay-off scene finally arrives it’s handled perfectly, with the most savage fight scene in British Cinema until Sean Connery and Robert Shaw went at it in From Russia with Love.
Oddly though, what stays in the mind is the emotional resonance of the moment, as feelings are conveyed by a glance, hearts broken and mended with a meaningful gesture, and Colton’s fury is unleashed not by Purvis’s attempted seduction, but when the rejected spiv insults his wife. The delicate emotional balance lends dramatic contrast to the violence that ensues, and the result is one of those truly memorable movie moments in a film well worth seeking out.
February 25th, 2022 at 10:34 pm
I’m not sure this could have been made during the war with that suggestion that the wife back home might not have been as faithful as the troops were led to believe.
Gilliat is one of the most stylish of British directors of the era, here without frequent collaborator Frank Launder, showing what he could do.
Mills at this time was the British everyman, the average guy who always seemed to prove more than anyone expected.
Within a few years Sim would have a string of great roles, often with Gilliat, in some of the best British films of the era.
Granger was on the brink of bigger career in Hollywood like James Mason his frequent co-star.
February 27th, 2022 at 6:12 pm
I’ve noticed this turn up a few times on an old film channel, but never realised it was even loosely a thriller. I must give it a watch next time, particularly as ‘The Green Man’ is one of my favourite films.
February 28th, 2022 at 1:46 am
Mark my words. ‘Waterloo Road’ with John Mills and Joy Shelton can only lead to ‘Waterloo Bridge’ with Robert Taylor and Vivien Leigh. Look out.
March 1st, 2022 at 7:02 am
Lazy Georgenby,
And what about the public restrooms there, known as “Waterloo Loo?”