Waterloo Road (film)

A soldier, Jim Colter, goes AWOL to return to his home in Waterloo, London, to save his wife from the advances of Ted Purvis, a philandering conscription-dodger.

• John Mills as Jim Colter
• Stewart Granger as Ted Purvis
• Alastair Sim as Dr. Montgomery
• Joy Shelton as Tillie Colter
• Alison Leggatt as Ruby
• Beatrice Varley as Mrs. Colter
• George Carney as Tom Mason
• Leslie Bradley as Mike Duggan
• Jean Kent as Toni
• Ben Williams as Corporal Lewis
• Anna Konstam as May
• Vera Frances as Vera Colter
• George Merritt as air raid warden
• Ian Fleming as officer at station
• Wylie Watson as tattooist
• John Boxer as policeman at the fight in arcade
• Frank Atkinson as pub barman

The film was originally known as Blue for Waterloo.{{cite web |url=http://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/motionpictureher153unse_0591 |title=Motion Picture Herald (via: Lantern: Search, Visualize & Explore the Media History Digital Library) |publisher=Motion Picture Herald; lantern.mediahist.org |date=Nov–Dec 1943 |access-date=2017-04-08}}

Stewart Granger later said the film was one of his favourites as his role "was a heel, but a real character".{{Cite news|title=GRANGER'S RANGE: At Home and Abroad With A Rising British Star|author=HOWARD THOMPSON|date=November 8, 1953|work=The New York Times|page=X5}} He says the film was made in ten days while he was also making Love Story. He was particularly proud of the fight scene with John Mills.Brian MacFarlane, An Autobiography of British Cinema, Methuen 1997 p 230

Sidney Gilliat said he was taken off the film before it was finished. Production was stopped and there were still some exteriors to be shot.{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-british-film-moguls-ted-black/|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|date=1 December 2024|access-date=1 December 2024|title=Forgotten British Film Moguls: Ted Black}} Producer Edward Black had gone and the Ostrers put the film at the end of the dubbing schedule. However, Earl St John who was in charge of Odeon cinemas liked the film and got the dubbing done.Brian MacFarlane, An Autobiography of British Cinema, Methuen 1997 p 225

Gilliat said the idea of using Alastair Sim's character as a commentator was his, though based on the original Val Valentine story. However, he thought the device "proved a bit of a mess".

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "In both writing and directing, Gilliat has achieved a remarkable degree of sincerity, of fidelity to background and character. These humble homes of South London, the friendly bustle of pub and street market, the tawdriness of the small-time shady characters – all are presented with a resolute and austere resistance to temptations to 'glamourise'. The incidentals of scene, character and activity are filled in with such painstaking conscientiousness that they remain in perfect perspective. Laughs are pointed with an unusual nicety of timing and the dialogue achieves at times a height of skill which is as subtle as it is unspectacular. The technical qualities of the film achieve the same veracity – notably the photography and the fisticuffs (under the guidance of Dave Crowley), which rank the climactic fight as one of the most convincing ever filmed fictionally. To complete this modest but most satisfying piece there is refreshingly honest and restrained acting – with Granger successfully rounding out the most difficult role and putting over the showy artificialities of the conceited philanderer."{{Cite journal |date=1 January 1945 |title=Waterloo Road |volume=12 |issue=133 |pages=14 |id={{ProQuest|1305813059}} |magazine=The Monthly Film Bulletin}}

Kine Weekly wrote: "Robust, romantic melodrama set in the early days of the biitz ... It has neither Technicolor nor the inimitable Noel Coward finesse, but it, nevertheless, gets down to brass tacks without fuss or bother and prefaces its happy and logical ending with one of the best fights seen in British pictures. , Good wholesome red meat that will please the crowd all right."{{Cite journal |date=11 January 1945 |title=Waterloo Road |volume=335 |issue=1969 |pages=27 |id={{ProQuest|2826345936}} |magazine=Kine Weekly}}

Variety wrote: "Skillful direction and admirable casting give this film satisfactory b.o. potentialities .... it's acted with such sincerity and is so true-to-life in its characterization that the picture grips throughout. There is a terrific climax in which the two men fight for one woman as the bombs thunder down. ... Plcture is a striking example of how sound an English production can be if it keeps to the medium it inteprets best, that of the middle class character."{{Cite magazine |date=7 February 1945 |title=Waterloo Road |url=https://archive.org/details/variety157-1945-02/page/n22/mode/1up?view=theater |volume=157 |issue=9 |pages=23 |id= |magazine=Variety}}

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "This is best remembered today as the wartime movie with a terrific fist-fighting climax as tiny John Mills beats up his wife's lover, six-foot-plus spiv Stewart Granger. If you believe that, you'll probably believe in the rest of this atypically stodgy Sidney Gilliat production. Told in a rather woolly flashback structure by Alastair Sim's kindly philosophising doctor, the plot is extremely realistic for its day, but Arthur Crabtree's stark photography fails to disguise the cramped studio interiors used for much of the film."{{Cite book |title=Radio Times Guide to Films |publisher=Immediate Media Company |year=2017 |isbn=9780992936440 |edition=18th |location=London |pages=1005}}

Time Out wrote: "No masterpiece, certainly, but it's often funny, sometimes touching, and always wonderfully evocative of the period."{{Cite web |date=20 Sep 2012 |title=Waterloo Road |url=https://www.timeout.com/movies/waterloo-road |access-date=2 February 2025 |website=Time Out}}

• Waterloo Road
• Waterloo Bridge
• The Cut

{{reflist}}

• {{IMDb title|0037447|Waterloo Road}}
• [http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/448774/ Waterloo Road] at BFI Screenonline

{{Gainsborough Pictures}}

{{Launder and Gilliat}}

Category:1945 films

Category:1945 drama films

Category:British black-and-white films

Category:British drama films

Category:Films directed by Sidney Gilliat

Category:Films set in London

Category:Gainsborough Pictures films

Category:British World War II films

Category:Films with screenplays by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat

Category:1940s English-language films

Category:1940s British films