WATERLOO ROAD (1945)

At his best working with regular writing partner Frank Launder (Alfred Hitchcock’s THE LADY VANISHES/’38; Carol Reed’s NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH/’40), this WWII homefront tale finds Sidney Gilliat writing & directing on his own to negligible effect.  Small beer as Private John Mills goes AWOL to chase down rumors his wife is ‘stepping out’ with local tough/wartime slacker Stewart Granger.  That’s about it.  Alastair Sim brings his amusing saturnine presence to a nothing role as the local doctor, introducing a neighborhood & present day scene of blitz-bombed row houses before we flashback to still intact homes where Mills’ discontented wife (Joy Shelton), stuck living with her in-laws, is also having a flashback, this one to her own happy wedding day.  (This flashback within a flashback the only stylistic fillip in the pic.*)  Talked into spending the day with Granger, the platonic pair stays one step ahead of Mills, himself but one step ahead of the military police.  A few real location shots add interest (those depressingly bleak row house exteriors shrieking of middle-class defeat), and from an extended fight between Granger & Mills fought in a tiny room.  Surprisingly effective, Granger towering over Mills who believably holds his own when not taking a few startling punches to the head.  Sim returning to pull us back to the present and bring us up to date.  Stirrings of future kitchen-sink drama, but no follow thru.

DOUBLE-BILL: *For piggyback flashbacks-within-flashbacks, hard to top PASSAGE TO MARSEILLES/’44 which stacks four or five running concurrently.  (Like a Russian nesting doll.)  Yet easy to keep track of with director Michael Curtiz and Casey Robinson script.  OR: See British kitchen-sink drama get underway in IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY/’47.