source: Far into the Night

The Bells Go Down_720p(480P)

source: The Bells Go Down

This film was based on the diaries of a serving AFS fireman who won the British Empire Medal before being invalided out and serves as a fine tribute to the AFS's work. It gives a realistic impression of the early days of the 'phoney war' in 1939 when rather like the home guard, the AFS wasn't taken seriously and was thought of by many as a bunch of disorderly Army dodgers. The change of tactics by the Germans that bought about the London Blitz soon corrected that perspective and the scale of the bombing and devistation is captured extremely well with special effects that are second to none for the time. Trinder's comedic mugging is balanced out by other members of the fire crew and the storyline provides a very good take on the highs and lows the AFS had to face. Given when it was made (1943)

James Mason later recalled with satisfaction that "my only contact with what was to become artistically the most distinguished workshop in the British film industry" when he joined the cast of this tribute to the Auxiliary Fire Service by Ealing studios. Basil Dearden's first solo venture as director was intended to bring home the havoc wrought by the blitz and pulls no punches on the shattering effect it had on morale as well as the criminality let loose, the slackening of public morals and the resentment servicemen felt towards workers in essential war work who they saw as earning "three quid a week for keeping out of the army!" To modern eyes there's the usual anomaly of two young newlyweds looking aghast at their humble new flat which seventy years later looks positively palatial.

The film is admirable in every aspect. It is almost documentary in its realism, although everything is faked, and yet it succeeds in giving a totally convincing picture of this tremendous plight of fighting the war by fighting its fires at the peril of everyone's life. These men are not called fire soldiers for nothing. Accentuating the value of the realism of the film is a number of prominent actors appearing as quite ordinary men in the fire brigade, like James Mason, Finlay Currie, William Hartnell, Mervyn Johns and even the comedian Tommy Trinder. It's amazing how this film was done. It was all made in studios, and yet the fire couldn't have been made more burning. Of course, much of it must have been collected out of actual footage of those days, you don't burn a city down to make a movie, and adding to the impact of the film is its almost architectural structure. The Blitz and its horrendous inferno of burning death doesn't start until half of the film has passed, all is just preparations before then, after which it is all serious business indeed. At the same time, there is plenty of good humour, many human aspects as women also play a significant part in the complex documentary of human lives under the Blitz, and still this was only the beginning. As Churchill said after the battle of Britain had been won, this was only the end of the beginning.

While we know that after war was declared by England and France against Germany on Sept. 3, 1939, the war was virtually at a standstill until 1940 when the Nazis began their assault on Britain in their famous blitzkrieg. In fact, during the 6 months after the outbreak of war, the situation was commonly called the sitzkrieg since nothing was really happening. The film is a definite tribute to the British Auxiliary Fire Force, who battled the infernos of London during this period. While it is true that the sitzkrieg existed, the film is rather dull during the first half. It describes 3 guys that join the force and are basically clowning around until the real action commences. The church scenes look like they came right out of "Mrs. Miniver," the year before. For a change, Finlay Currie looks young, and so different than from his usual biblical films. The British certainly kept their stiff upper lip during such adversity and the film is a wonderful tribute to their plight.

Until 9/11 happened this was a story that could never be an American story. The Bells Go Down is the story of an auxiliary fire fighter unit in London's East End and stars British music hall comedian Tommy Trinder as one of the volunteers. As the United Kingdom was under attack I'm sure one of the few exemptions in the British Armed Services was being a firefighter. The regular London Fire Department was working 24/7 as soon as the Battle of Britain started and they needed all the help they could get. Hence these Auxiliary Fire Units headed and trained by Finlay Currie and James Mason whom I was surprised to see in a supporting role as his career was on the ascent at this time. Mason himself said that this was his one and only appearance in an Ealing Studio film and one which he was proud to make as he admired the comedies that studio turned out post war, especially those with Alec Guinness. Trinder whose work I was unfamiliar with until seeing this is a bit of a lunkhead when he starts but certainly proves to have the right stuff. In many ways this film is similar to the wartime British movie The Way Ahead where some rather unmilitary type civilians trained by David Niven and William Hartnell into fighting British troops. Hartnell is in this film too, but not as a trainer. He has a very nice part as a veteran of the International Brigade who has experienced the Spanish Civil War and saw the air raids on Madrid. He steadies the group from the inside with his knowledge of how serious this work is. And this film is yet another salute to the people of Great Britain who pulled together in their finest hour. More than Trinder, the whole lot of them had the right stuff.

This must be the only time that Tommy Trinder -- or any other performer, surely? -- got lead billing in a vehicle written for him in his comic capacity, only to end up unexpectedly killed off before the finish of the film... That said, the lead billing of Trinder is misleading: in actual fact "The Bells Go Down" is very much an ensemble piece with principal narrative strands centred around James Mason and Philip Friend, plus the standard theme of the welding together of a disparate team. Tommy Trinder's role in the film is that of intermittent comic relief, which unfortunately tends to jar more and more as the subject matter becomes more serious. At the beginning, with its light-hearted tone, his breezy persona fits seamlessly into the action and is often very funny; but as the characters are launched into the East End Blitz with, for example, Bob faced with an order to destroy his own home to save the warehouses opposite for the war effort, the character of Tommy acquires no extra depth and is in consequence sidelined to the occasional chirpy interlude. It is perhaps symptomatic that the whole 'Short Head' plot strand rather fizzles out, the greyhound's importance totally overwhelmed in the minds of both characters and audience by the intervening nights of battle against the flames. The result is that Tommy Turk's death comes as a shock, but not quite of the nature intended: the narrative to date simply hasn't telegraphed the character as being that important. Certainly his actions are not inconsistent with the character established, and Trinder plays the scene well. (He was apparently so proud of this performance that he kept blatantly plugging it in his stage act, leading one heckler to retort that he'd rather watch the comedian 'die' on stage at the Palladium!) But the film then suddenly swings into po-faced, full blown 'fallen hero' mode -- better perhaps to have handled it via the shocked reactions of the survivors outside the building at the time? -- and actually managed to leave me confused for some minutes as to what in fact had just happened. It scarcely seems an apt memorial to a character who spends most of the film cheerfully sneaking a surreptitious fag, and rather unbalances the picture just at the ending. William Hartnell, here billed as 'Billy Hartnell', provides, as so often, convincing and capable support as Brookes, the intellectual (and presumably left-winger) of the brigade, who has seen the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. Mervyn Johns, as the petty crook Sam, has a similar comic-relief role to Trinder's but is integrated better into the team, while Richard George as his nemesis, the Irish P.C. O'Brien, is inevitably somewhat one-dimensional, but the two have a good scene together at the height of the Blitz which is nicely understated and effective. Muriel George outshines both the younger women as Ted's formidable mother. The special effects for the numerous fire scenes are seamless and very realistic (or perhaps they really did put the sets alight!) and an extensive selection of Fire Service equipment was clearly made available to the studio. The film starts off in classic Ealing style as a snapshot of a community, and remains both sure-footed in comedy territory and quietly powerful in certain more serious scenes. But one suspects that more concern was paid to the drawing-power of Tommy Trinder's name than to how his talents would be fitted into the film, and it suffers from what I felt was a badly handled and somewhat glib conclusion.

The film is set in London during the "Blitz" in 1940. The story follows Tommy Trinder's character from his enrolment in the Auxiliary Fire Service, through his training and eventual fire-fighting duties during air raids. The style of the film now appears very dated but is a fascinating snapshot of the period. Trinder's acting is a little wooden, the special effects are crude but it provides an excellent historical record of the courage and high esteem in which London's fire-fighters were held and the tasks they faced during the period.