Medal for the General is a 1944

1944 in film

The year 1944 in film involved some significant events, including the wholesome, award-winning Going My Way plus popular murder mysteries such as Double Indemnity, Gaslight and Laura.-Events:*July 20 - Since You Went Away is released....

 British

Cinema of the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...

 comedy film

Comedy film

Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

 directed by Maurice Elvey

Maurice Elvey

Maurice Elvey was the most prolific film director in British history. He directed nearly 200 films between 1913 and 1957. During the silent film era he directed as many as twenty films per year....

. The screenplay by Elizabeth Baron is based on the novel of the same title by James Ronald.

Plot

The title character is Victor Church, a World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 veteran who becomes despondent when his advancing age prevents him from playing an active role in the battles of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Feeling unwanted and useless, he retreats to his country estate and plans his suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

. He finds a new purpose in life when he opens his home to six rambunctious Cockney

Cockney

The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...

 children evacuated from the London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 slum

Slum

A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...

s and tries to keep the mischievous group under control.

Production

Director Maurice Elvey was still searching for a young girl to portray the precocious orphan Irma when he attended a charity concert to benefit the National Fire Service

National Fire Service

The National Fire Service was the single fire service created in Great Britain in 1941 during the Second World War; a separate National Fire Service was created in 1942....

 at Royal Albert Hall

Royal Albert Hall

The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....

. On the bill was eleven-year-old Petula Clark

Petula Clark

Petula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...

, who in addition to singing appeared in a comedy sketch written by her father. Elvey was so impressed by her performance he went backstage and offered her the role in his film. The following year he cast her in I Know Where I'm Going!

I Know Where I'm Going!

I Know Where I'm Going! is a 1945 romance film by the British-based film-makers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It stars Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesey, and features Pamela Brown, Finlay Currie and Petula Clark in her fourth film appearance....

, and the two reunited for the 1954 film The Happiness of Three Women.

Cast

• Godfrey Tearle
  Godfrey Tearle
  Sir Godfrey Seymour Tearle was a British actor who portrayed the quintessential Englishman on stage and in both English and US films.-Biography:...
  
   ..... Gen. Victor Church
• Jeanne De Casalis
  Jeanne de Casalis
  Jeanne de Casalis was an African-born British actress of stage, radio, and film.Born in Basutoland as Casalis de Pury, she was educated in France - where her father owned one of the largest corset retailers, Charneaux - and began her career in music before working in London.She appeared on stage...
  
   ..... Lady Frome
• Morland Graham
  Morland Graham
  Morland Graham was a British film actor.Married to Elsie Cole in 1926.-Selected filmography:* Man of the Moment * Moscow Nights * Get Off My Foot * Where's Sally?...
  
  ..... Bates
• Mabel Constanduros
  Mabel Constanduros
  Mabel Constanduros , birth name Mabel Tilling, was an English actress and screenwriter. She achieved fame playing Mrs.Buggins on the radio programme The Buggins Family, which ran from 1928 to 1948. She played Earthy Mangold in the popular Worzel Gummidge radio serial on the BBC Children's Hour...
  
  ..... Mrs. Bates
• John Laurie
  John Laurie
  John Paton Laurie was a British actor born in Dumfries, Scotland. Although he is now probably most recognised for his role as Private James Frazer in the sitcom Dad's Army , he appeared in hundreds of feature films, including films by Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Powell and Laurence Olivier...
  
   ..... McNab
• Patric Curwen..... Dr. Sargeant
• Thorley Walters
  Thorley Walters
  Thorley Walters was an English character actor.He is probably best remembered for his comedy film roles such as in Two-Way Stretch and Carlton-Browne of the FO...
  
   ..... Andrew
• Alec Faversham..... Hank
• Michael Lambart..... Lord Ottershaw
• Irene Handl
  Irene Handl
  -Life:Irene Handl was born in Maida Vale, London, the daughter of an Austrian banker father and French mother. She took to acting at the relatively advanced age of 36, and studied at the acting school run by the sister of Dame Sybil Thorndike...
  
   ..... Mrs. Famsworth
• Rosalyn Boulter
  Rosalyn Boulter
  -Selected filmography:* Return of a Stranger * Holiday's End * A Royal Divorce * The First of the Few * The Gentle Sex * George in Civvy Street * This Man Is Mine...
  
  ..... Billetting Officer
• Petula Clark
  Petula Clark
  Petula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...
  
   ..... Irma

Critical reception

The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

said, "Medal for the General is hardly a subtle or intellectual film, but it is warmhearted and the acting and direction show tact and good sense throughout."

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

thought the story "is hardly promising material, and the sentimental way in which it is treated does nothing to make it more palatable."