The Common Touch (1941)

The Common Touch
Directed by John Baxter
Written by Herbert Ayres, Barbara K. Emary and Geoffrey Orme
1941/UK
British National Filma
First viewing/Amazon Prime Instant Video

[box] If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, / Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,/ If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much;/ If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, / Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! — “If”, Rudyard Kipling[/box]

I imagine that this pleasant little movie about pulling together was just what the doctor ordered for the British during the Blitz.

Peter Hibbert is taken from his cricket team at an English public school to run his family’s business at age 18 following the death of his parents in an accident.  Management expects him to be a figure head but Peter insists in taking an active role in the firm.  He learns that some tenements and a place called Charlie’s is slated to be demolished by his firm to build an office building.  Peter has been unable to get straight answers as to why this is happening and decides to investigate for himself incognito.

He finds that Charlie’s is a gathering place for homeless and poor men and grows to love the establishment.  How to save it?  There are numerous musical numbers both in a night club setting starring the daughter of one of the men and by street musicians who entertain in the shelter.

The story is slightly marred by a resolution that comes out of nowhere.  The plot also contains one of my least favorite elements, the “noble” suicide.  Still, this kept my interest all the way through and has beautiful sets and some nice music, most performed in the canteen.

Clip – Street musicians practicing at Charlie’s