This Land Is Mine (1943)

Director:

Jean Renoir

Writer:

Dudley Nichols (screenplay)

Release Date:

7 May 1943 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | War

Plot:

A mild-mannered schoolteacher in a Germen occupied town during WWII finds himself being torn between collaboration and resistance.

Plot Keywords:

Resistance | Schoolteacher | WWII | False Accusation | Train Wreck

Awards:

Won Oscar.

Cast

Charles Laughton	...	Albert Lory
Maureen O'Hara	...	Louise Martin
George Sanders	...	George Lambert
Walter Slezak	...	Major Erich von Keller
Kent Smith	...	Paul Martin
Una O'Connor	...	Mrs. Emma Lory
Philip Merivale	...	Professor Sorel
Thurston Hall	...	Mayor Henry Manville
George Coulouris	...	Prosecutor
Nancy Gates	...	Julie Grant
Ivan F. Simpson	...	Judge (as Ivan Simpson)
John Donat	...	Edmund Lorraine

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | German | Latin

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #8004) | USA:TV-PG (TV rating) | Finland:K-15 (2005) | Sweden:15

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Trivia:

The singing of "Die Lorelei" by the German soldiers was a subtle dig at the anti-semitic regime of the Nazis, since the words were written by banned Jewish poet Heinrich Heine. Many of his books, considered "un-German," were burned in the book-burning episode at Opernplatz, Berlin, Germany, on 10 May 1933. However, his works were so popular that they were still published, but "author unknown" was the listed writer. In his 1821 play "Almansor," Heine also prophetically wrote "Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen." ("Where they burned books, they will in the end in burn people.")

Goofs:

Factual errors: In the initial scenes on the village, an advertisement for War Bonds can be seen on a wall. Although the French government sought funds from its population during the First World War (through National Defense Loans), it would not have occurred in the Second World War as France was so quickly defeated and occupied. The advertisement in this movie therefore is more likely to be a near-subliminal appeal to the American population to purchase War Bonds to support the US effort.

Quotes:

Mrs. Emma Lory: Why don't they bomb Germany, young woman?
Louise Martin: Every factory and railroad in Europe is Germany, Mrs. Lory, until the Germans are driven out.

Soundtrack:

Die Lorelei

A courtroom speech to die for !

Charles Laughton delivers one of the finest courtroom speeches that you are ever likely to see (it certainly ranks with Spencer Tracy in "Inherit the Wind", or Gregory Peck in "To Kill a Mockingbird" ). Here, though, Laughton is not pleading the case for the defense or the prosecution, he is pleading for his own life in a Nazi "show-trial".

Rather than saving his own life by following the instructions of the German authorities, Laughton chooses to use the opportunity presented by his conducting his own defense to launch a masterful indictment of the Nazi regime. His speech to the jurors and the packed, public galleries is delivered with the sincerity and authority which only an actor with Laughton's many talents, could hope to muster. Inspired by Laughton's speech, the jurors find the courage to acquit him and Laughton dashes from the court to the school where he is a teacher.

Having made such a speech, Laughton knows that he has signed his own death warrant. There is just time, before the German soldiers come to take him away, for one final speech to his beloved class of school-children. Once again, Laughton produces the goods in this very touching scene as he reads to the children articles from the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

Most of this film is typical, low-budget, World War Two propaganda but Laughton raises it above the mediocre. Maureen O'Hara is gorgeous as the fellow teacher with whom Laughton is in love. Also worth watching, as ever, is Una O'Connor as Laughton's mother.