The Lamp Still Burns **** (1943, Rosamund John, Stewart Granger, Godfrey Tearle, Joyce Grenfell, Megs Jenkins) – Classic Movie Review 6962

Director Maurice Elvey’s heartfelt 1943 British nursing and romantic drama is adapted from the novel One Pair of Feet by Monica Dickens and tells the tale of the trials and tribulations of young nurses during wartime. A tribute to the vital work of the selfless female nurses is the heart-lifting subject of this spirit-boosting propaganda melodrama from World War Two.

It can also be seen as a plea for better conditions in British hospitals and better treatment for Britain’s nurses. It is produced by the actor Leslie Howard, who was killed on war service on 1 June 1943 soon after the film was released when his plane was shot down by Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88C6 maritime fighter aircraft over the Bay of Biscay.

Rosamund John stars as Hilary Clarke, an actress who opts for nursing in the war and Stewart Granger plays Laurence Rains, the hurt flier she falls for. Both star players are effective and likeable, but it is the character support actors who really carry the film and gives it its soul. Joyce Grenfell provides one of her usual immaculate turns as Dr Barrett and so does Megs Jenkins as one of the nurses,  Cathleen Nesbitt plays the matron, and there are two key players of Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps to look out for – John Laurie and Wylie Watson.

The Lamp Still Burns is a stirring and persuasive tribute to the angels, which can still work its spell, and now sheds a lot of light on the mood and attitudes of the day as a British World War Two film actually made during wartime.

Also in the cast are Godfrey Tearle, Sophie Stewart, Margaret Vyner, Cathleen Nesbitt, Joan Maude, Grace Arnold, Ernest Thesiger as the chairman, John Howard, Brefni O’Rorke, Leslie Dwyer, Eric Micklewood, Mignon O’Doherty, Patric Curwen, Jenny Laird and Aubrey Mallalieu.

Ernest Thesiger as the chairman in The Lamp Still Burns (1943).

The Lamp Still Burns is directed by Maurice Elvey, runs 90 minutes, is made by Two Cities, is released by General Film Distributors, is written by Elizabeth Baron (writer), Roland Pertwee (additional dialogue) and Charles Nelson (additional dialogue), based on the novel One Pair of Feet by Monica Dickens, is shot in black and white by Robert Krasker, is produced by Leslie Howard and scored by John Greenwood, with Production Design by Alex Vetchinsky.

Monica Dickens MBE (10 May 1915 – 25 December 1992) is the great-grand daughter of Charles Dickens. Her book One Pair of Feet (1942) recounted her own wartime work as a nurse.

Rosamund John explained that Granger’s flier character Rains was ‘supposed to have a head injury, which would have meant having his hair shaved off and a bandage like a turban. He flatly refused, so they had to change it to a broken rib’.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6962

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