The best John Laurie’s war movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best John Laurie’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about John Laurie.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
8/10
General Candy, who's overseeing an English squad in 1943, is a veteran leader who doesn't have the respect of the men he's training and is considered out-of-touch with what's needed to win the war. But it wasn't always this way. Flashing back to his early career in the Boer War and World War I, we see a dashing young officer whose life has been shaped by three different women, and by a lasting friendship with a German soldier.
The Four Feathers
7.4/10
A disgraced officer risks his life to help his childhood friends in battle.
The Way Ahead
6.9/10
A mismatched collection of conscripted civilians find training tough under Lieutenant Jim Perry and Sergeant Ned Fletcher when they are called up to replace an infantry battalion that had suffered casualties at Dunkirk.
Saturday Island
6/10
When their hospital ship sinks in the South Pacific during World War II, military nurse Elizabeth Smythe (Linda Darnell) and Marine Michael Dugan (Tab Hunter) find themselves stranded — and soon enough, falling in love — on an idyllic tropical island. But when British pilot William Peck (Donald Gray) crash-lands on their cozy little atoll, Dugan suddenly discovers he has a rival in love.
Dangerous Moonlight
6.2/10
Stefan Radetzky, a Polish pilot and famous concert pianist, is hospitalised in England from injuries sustained while in combat, and having lost his memory. As Radetzky plays the piano in a trance-like state, the story moves back in time to war-torn Warsaw. During an air-raid, Radetzky meets American journalist Carole, and there is a mutual attraction. Following the fall of Poland, Radetzky and Irish pilot, Mike, escape to Rumania and then on to America. Radetzky continues his musical career in America and meets up again with Carole.
Sailors Three
5.4/10
Three sailors get drunk while on shore leave and end up on the wrong ship. When they realise their mistake they scramble off it and onto their warship, HMS Ferocious. However, they soon realise that the vessel they have boarded is not the Ferocious but a German battleship.
The New Lot
7.1/10
A new batch of Army recruits, from diverse backgrounds and with varying degrees of commitment, is shaped into an efficient fighting unit.
Convoy
6/10
A tale of life on board a Royal Navy cruiser assigned to protect the vital convoys between America and England during WWII.
Ships with Wings
5.5/10
Before the war, a Fleet Air Arm pilot is dismissed for causing the death of a colleague. Working for a small Greek airline when the Germans invade Greece, he gets a chance to redeem himself and rejoin his old unit on a British carrier. This is regarded the last of the conventional, rather stiff 1930th style Ealing war films, to be succeeded by much more realism and better storytelling.
School for Secrets
6.5/10
Wartime tale of a group of British scientists efforts to develop the first radar system. They did it just in time for it to be used in the Battle of Britain against the might of the Nazi Luftwaffe. Without it the little island could well have been overrun.
The Gentle Sex
6.2/10
During the War seven women from very different backgrounds find themselves together in the Auxiliary Territorial Services. They are soon drilling, driving lorries, and manning ack-ack batteries.
The Lamp Still Burns
6.2/10
A tribute to the important work of female nurses during World War II.
