Popular reviews

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  Review by Stephen M ★★★★ 6

  August 2023: Director of the Month - Basil Dearden

  One of Dearden's Ealing Studio films, this was surprisingly bold topic for a film produced only two years after the war. The story of a British RAF airman POW who brings a German wife back to his home town, it's about prejudice and the hatred of Germans held by many of the English after two wars. It shows this through the reactions of the townspeople and the airman's own family, and doesn't shy away from complex issues.

  It doesn't hurt that it boasts an excellent cast, especially the women. Mai Zetterling plays Frida, the wife of Robert (David Farrar from Black Narcissus) whom she helped to escape from a POW camp.…

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  Review by Scott Huston ★★★½

  This October 5th 2023 is Glynis Johns’ 100th birthday , and she currently lives in California.

  Glynis plays Judy Dawson, sister-in-law to Robert Dawson who has just returned from WW2 with a German war bride, to their small town in England, it is near the end of the war 1945, and then the story gets complicated.

  In the real world it is 1947, and this film is to remind some citizens that the war is over, even though food rationing was still in effect, rationing for bread stopped in 1948 and meat or bacon ended in 1954.

  Judy Dawson (Glynis Johns) is the sole voice of reason in this film.

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  Review by Liz ★★★

  Lmaoo this British lady goin off about how Germans are the root of all societies problems bc of the world wars like bitch u kno ur country has invaded like half the countries on earth right

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  Review by Leavingfilmstrk ★★★★ 2

  I had never heard of this and found it when I looked for something to watch to celebrate Glynis Johns' 100th birthday. Happy birthday, Ms. Johns!

  An amazing film, daring, moving, beautifully acted. I could quibble with a couple things but it's so powerful I don't dare tell the filmmaker what would have worked better. I'd be wrong anyway.

  Highly recommend. I watched on archive.org.

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  Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🐝 ★★★★

  Anybody who has recorded and watched as many films off Talking Pictures TV as I have is bound to have watched a lot of Basil Dearden films.

  And I'm very glad for that because he really was a terrific film director, and one of the few British filmmakers of his generation unafraid of asking tough questions of his audiences and making (at the time) bold social statements.

  Frieda, released just a couple of years after the end of WWII, is typically Rearden. A drama about a marriage of convenience between David Farrar and Mai Zetterling after she rescues him from a POW camp in Germany and the effect it has on his home town, this is bound to have wound…

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  Review by Zach Nabors ★★★½

  Ultimately too didactic and preachy. The script certainly tells too much instead of just showing. But Dearden directs the hell out of this with little resources. You could see early in his career that he had the chops. His eye for composition, staging and camera placement was more than exciting. His mix of tones with noir and melodrama here mostly holds up. The post-war anxieties mixed with a bit of Langian fatalism is a nice touch. And I don’t want to spoil, so I’ll just say that big scene toward the end at the river where the film turns into something one might have seen in a Abel Gance film for about 2 minutes is fantastic.

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  Review by Chloe

  Pretty much every character here says the message of the movie - you can’t judge a person by where they come from - multiple times. They really ram that message home, but I suppose in 1947 it needed ramming home. In many ways, it still does.

  That heavyhandedness does weigh Frieda down though. It’s completely lacking in any sort of humour or joy. There are some nice directorial touches (that expressionistic finale is a highlight), but overall it’s too flat and self-serious to warrant much enthusiasm.

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  Review by James ★★★½

  Another terribly underseen gem from the Ealing archives and more specifically, one by director Basil Dearden, whose reputation as something of a workman belies the fact that he made some very interesting and unusual films, even if all of them weren't especially brilliant and with Frieda he really does a superb job with the limited resources provided by the two Michaels.

  Barely two years after the war had ended this film decides to tackle themes of prejudice and the lingering resentment left behind after conflict, the core message being that the accountability of an entire nation or system of beliefs cannot be applied to the individual—certainly a major shift in direction from a studio best known for its comedic output.…

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  Review by Cate ★★★

  I watched this a few weeks back; two thoughts that have stayed with me:

  Firstly, about the choice to include newsreel footage from Belsen which made me feel uneasy – victims of genocide being used for a dramatic beat in postwar entertainment, and making the film's 'not all Germans' message seem misjudged and exploitative.

  Secondly, how bold and strikingly realised the 'bridge' scene is, the layering of sound and water over Zetterling's face, the pre-raphaelite evocation of romance and death; the other characters' flat understanding of her (cf 'she has a lovely face.')

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  Review by Lencho of the Apes ★★★

  Gee, Basil Dearden gravitated toward problem-dramas right from the beginning, didn't he? The problem here is how to assimilate potentially "good Germans" into Anglokultur without allowing certain reasonable prejudices to blight their experience.

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  Review by Ells ★★★★

  Asks a lot of difficult questions about bearing witness to genocide, turning away at its presence all around you, nationality vs. nationalism, and versions of imperialism on both sides of the English Channel while also telling an individual tale of new beginnings and love within a sort of post-war malaise. The addition of Frieda's brother into the plot is a bit contrived, admittedly. I enjoyed Mai Zetterling as the lead but also wish there were more of her and her perspective (which is weirdly absent in some scenes despite the film being named after her.)

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  Review by PUNQ ★★★

  The story is absolutely interesting coming straight after World War II with a British soldier marrying a German lady and brings her back to England. The town gossip, the scepticism, and all that you'd expect after years of being enemies. Especially where the loyalty lays when her Nazi brother turns-up. There is a moral tone which plays-out mildly effective. There were things they could have done different for a stronger emotional effect, but a lot of it worked regardless.