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The Way Ahead is a British film of genre Drama directed by Carol Reed released in USA on 3 june 1945 with David Niven
The Way Ahead (1944)
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Add to a movie listThe Way Ahead is a British Second World War drama released in 1944. It stars David Niven and Stanley Holloway and follows a group of civilians who are conscripted into the British Army to fight in North Africa. In the U.S., an edited version was released as The Immortal Battalion.
The film was written by Eric Ambler and Peter Ustinov and directed by Carol Reed. The three had originally produced the 1943 training film The New Lot, which was produced for the Army Kinematograph Service. The Way Ahead was an expanded remake of their earlier film, this time intended for a commercial audience. The two films featured some of the same actors, including John Laurie, Raymond Huntley and Peter Ustinov. Niven, a 1930 graduate of Sandhurst, was at the time a major in the British Army working with the Army Film Unit and later served in Normandy with GHQ Liaison Regiment.
Synopsis
In the days after the Dunkirk evacuation in Second World War, recently commissioned Second Lieutenant Jim Perry (David Niven), a pre-war Territorial private soldier and a veteran sergeant of the British Expeditionary Force, is posted to the (fictional) Duke of Glendon's Light Infantry, known as the 'dogs', to train replacements to fill its depleted ranks. A patient, mild-mannered officer, he does his strenuous best to turn the bunch of grumbling ex-civilians into soldiers, earning himself their intense dislike. The conscripts also believe that their sergeant is treating them with special severity; in fact, he is pleased with the way they are developing and has his eye on some of them as potential NCOs. Eventually however, the men come to respect their officer.Actors
David Niven
(Lieutenant Jim Perry)
Stanley Holloway
(Pvt. Ted Brewer)
William Hartnell
(Sgt. Ned Fletcher)
James Donald
(Pvt. Evans Lloyd)
John Laurie
(Pvt. Luke)
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Suggestions of similar film to The Way Ahead
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Origin United-kingdom
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, 1h50Directed by Carol Reed
Origin United-kingdom
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, 17minutesDirected by Carol Reed
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