We’ll Meet Again ** (1943, Vera Lynn, Geraldo, Patricia Roc) – Classic Movie Review 9931

Director Philip Brandon’s 1943 morale-boosting musical We’ll Meet Again provides a rare film role for British wartime singing sensation Vera Lynn, using the title of her most famous song. It is her film debut in the first of her three films, followed by Rhythm Serenade (1943) and One Exciting Night (1944).

We’ll Meet Again is a modest little romantic backstage musical, with considerable nostalgia value and charming, unpractised acting from Lynn as a young music hall dancer and reluctant songbird called Peggy, signed up by the BBC for the radio after trilling a song ‘After the Rain’ (music by Bert Reisfeld, lyrics by Jack Popplewell) during an air raid during the London Blitz.

She becomes a hit on the airwaves and quickly becomes a star, but her best pal Ruth Cole (Patricia Roc) makes off with her boyfriend, a Scottish squaddy laddie, the kilt-wearing Bruce McIntosh (Donald Gray).

[Spoiler alert] The film ends with Peggy and her male best friend Frank Foster (Ronald Ward), an aspiring song-writer, giving an open air concert to several hundred RAF crew, singing ‘Sincerely Yours’ and ‘We’ll Meet Again’ .

The story is loosely based on the life of Vera Lynn, aka the Forces’ Sweetheart.

Geraldo and his Orchestra and newscaster Alvar Liddell bring back the authentic sound of the day.

Vera Lynn also performs ‘Be Like the Kettle and Sing’,’I’m Yours Sincerely’, ‘Ave Maria’, ‘All the World Sings a Lullaby’, and ‘Use of Song’.

Also in the cast are Patricia Roc, Ronald Ward, Donald Gray, Frederick Leister, Betty Jardine, Brefni O’Rorke, Marian Spencer, Peter Gawthorne, Molly Raynor, Lesley Osmond, Pat Williams and Aubrey Mallalieu.

We’ll Meet Again is directed by Philip Brandon, runs 84 minutes, is made by Columbia British Productions, is released by Columbia Pictures, is written by James Seymour (screenplay), John L Arthur (script contribution) and Howard Thomas (script contribution), based on a story by Derek Sheils, is shot in black and white by Stephen Dade, is produced by Ben Henry and is scored by Harry Bidgood.

It is made at Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London.

Vera Lynn (1917–2020).

Vera Lynn was born on March 20, 1917 in East Ham, London, England as Vera Margaret Welch. She died on June 18, 2020 in East Sussex, England, aged 103.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9931

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