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This Happy Breed Overview:

This Happy Breed (1944) was a Comedy - Drama Film directed by David Lean and produced by Ronald Neame.

This Happy Breed BlogHub Articles:

Robert Newton and Celia Johnson head the cast in David Lean’s “This Happy Breed”

By Stephen Reginald on Jul 30, 2023 From Classic Movie Man

Robert Newton and Celia Johnson head the cast in David Lean’s “This Happy Breed” This Happy Breed (1944) is a British drama directed by David Lean and starring Robert Newton, Celia Johnson, Stanley Holloway, and John Mills. The screenplay is by Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan, an... Read full article

This Happy Breed (1944)

By Beatrice on Nov 21, 2014 From Flickers in Time

This Happy Breed Directed by David Lean Written by Anthony Havlock Allen, David Lean, and Ronald Neame from a play by Noel Coward 1944/UK Noel Coward-Cineguild/Two Cities Films First viewing/Amazon Instant Video This is the episodic story of two neighboring middle-class London families between ... Read full article

"This Happy Breed" & "Brief Encounter"

By Jeremy Carr on Jul 10, 2013 From Studies in Cinema

David Lean is probably best known for large-scale super productions like Bridge on the Rive Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Doctor Zhivago (1965), and this is of course not without due reason; these, especially Lawrence, are tremendous films. But when you look at Lean’s body of wor... Read full article

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This Happy Breed Quotes:

Frank Gibbons: [putting down the newspaper] Well, they're cutting down the navy, and they're cutting down the army. The only thing they don't seem to be cutting down is the unemployed!
Frank Gibbons: She didn't pass on, pass over, or pass out! She died!
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This Happy Breed Facts
The comment, early in the film about the cat and buttering its paws, comes from a technique used when a cat moves house. According to this, if the cat has butter on its paws it will stop and lick it of. As cats are very clean creatures, the butter on its paws and the bits of dirt/ dust/ debris that will inevitably stick to it will annoy the cat. The cat will sit down to clean itself and, in doing so, will take in its new surroundings creating a mental map of where its new home is and helping it to make the adjustment to its new surroundings.
The swelling orchestral fanfare which plays over the film's final shots is based around the main theme of the then-popular patriotic song London Pride - a song written and most notably recorded by Noel Coward, the film's producer and author of the play upon which the film is based.
The title 'This Happy Breed' is taken from a monologue of John of Gaunt's in Shakespeare's Richard II, act II, scene i, which is widely renowned for its stirring pro-Anglicism. It reads, in part, 'This happy breed of men, this little world, / This precious stone set in the silver sea, / Which serves it in the office of a wall, / Or as a moat defensive to a house, / Against the envy of less happier lands, / This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.'
David Lean's first film in color.
Billy works his work up in the Navy through the film. When he is first seen, he is a Leading Seaman/ Rate having a 3rd Class Quarters Rating in Gunnery. At Reg's wedding, he is now a Petty Officer, with 2 stripes (chevrons) indicating 10 Years Good Conduct, and is still working in Gunnery. When he comes to tell the Gibbons, he has found Queenie, he is now a Sub-Lieutenant, having made the transition from the ranks to the Officer Class.
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