This Land is Mine (1943)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

This Land is Mine (1943) – J. Renoir

I still find it astonishing to watch the impassioned films of the early 1940s that offer sermons admonishing people to fight the Nazis and to defend freedom.  Having escaped from France himself, Jean Renoir (like so many other European émigré directors) was personally invested in this message.  This Land is Mine vividly and theatrically tells the story of an unknown country under German occupation and the choices people make to resist or not to resist.  Charles Laughton, a school-teacher, is too meek to know what to do, but he is influenced by his colleague, Maureen O’Hara, her brother Kent Smith, and the principal of the school (Philip Merivale) to know what is right. They are opposed by Walter Slezak, the charismatic German major, and George Sanders, the self-loathing collaborator.  As events play out and members of the resistance are caught and shot, Laughton becomes galvanized.  And then it happens, the movie stops dead and allows Laughton to speak at length against occupations both general and specific (in words written by screenwriter Dudley Nichols, who wrote many Hollywood hits).  This is pretty rousing stuff and you don’t hear it every day.  Perhaps we should.   Of course, this break from the film (and from Laughton’s character) does disrupt the original story – but for this decision, I’m giving it an even higher rating than if it stayed small and kept its social influence strategy implicit.