This Land is Mine (1943)

This is a WWII anti-nazi propaganda movie set in that familiar town Studiobacklot, Europe.

The Germans have occupied the town and the story is about how the town people, officials and others, deal with this predicament. The Germans don’t come in and run the government directly. They operate by leaning on the town leaders already in place who are often quite willing to collaborate to retain power and generally save themselves from these polite, but unpredictable, uniformed occupation officers. 

This was written by Dudley Nichols and it’s director Jean Renoir. The script is outstanding and manages to deliver the goods as far as being educational regarding what fascism is as well as the mechanics of power manipulation. There is also a speech that ran down the difference of the impact of the enforcement of new fascist rule depending on one's class position. The middle class may be willing to try it on for size, collaborate, while the workers know that it means their enslavement. It was kind of surprising and pleasing to hear all that stated flat out in the movie. This is an interesting feature of WWII USA, even big business of a high profile type like the movies has to appear as anti fascist to motivate the war effort despite what their hidden political impulses might be. 

At the center of the story is a meek “cowardly” elementary school teacher. 

This role is played by Charles Laughton. This teacher and momma’s boy is not at all manly. This is illustrated comically in a scene where he attempts to smoke a cigarette. One drag sends him into a coughing fit. Later, after a transition, he asks for a light. Cigarette smoking becomes a metaphor for manliness. Perhaps Edward Barnys worked product placement on this movie. Charles Laughton is very good in this and his character has to find his own courage. He is the one who shifts and learns most in the course of the story after a series of occurrences and delivers some fine speeches. Since Laughton is playing this guy and we now know more, maybe than we wish to, about the celluloid closet, the movie can also be easily viewed as a gay schoolteacher standing up to the nazis. The beard is played by Maureen O’Hara who also serves as a radical anti-nazi influence. 

This is a rich, well made, beautifully written, directed and staged production.
It has some nice stunt work, a chase on rooftops, and jumping from a railroad bridge on to a movie train.
It also has some really nicely done set-extending mat shots. It’s a classy production.  

And it features Tommy Bond somewhat older than his mid-30s Our Gang/Little Rascals unforgettable Butch character as one of the smart ass school boys. 

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An interesting offshoot of 1930s-40s Hollywood is the long running radio anthology series Lux Radio Theatre. This show presented live radio play adaptations of recent movies often with the original stars reprising their roles. There are lots of these. This Land is Mine is one of the movies given hour long adaptations with Laughton and O’Hara reprising their roles from about a year earlier. 

I haven’t listened to this yet but here it is: 

YouTube: https://youtu.be/ngCtgMUEFxc

Or download an audio file from the great source that is archive.org 

April 24, 1944 on this page:
https://ia800706.us.archive.org/23/items/Lux_Radio_Theatre_Digitally_Restored_Collection/44-04-24ThisLandIsMinecharlesLaughton--maureenOsullivan.mp3