The Picture Show Annual (1942)

K n 0 Leslie Howard and the three who represent the Empire. On the following rom m pages are stars it i of our Empire. */ the i Lomer^ ^NE of the best short films ever shown, this is the story of a casual meeting of a Londoner and three Empire soldiers on leave in London—a Canadian, an Australian and a New Zealander. The meeting occurs through the thing that has begun so many casual acquaintances—the homely pint of beer. The three on leave are all in quest of it—and the Londoner (who is Leslie Howard) leads them to it, being more familiar with the vagaries of the licensing authorities that allow beer to be sold on one side of a street half an hour earlier than on the other. Over their respective pints the three tell unemotionally and matter-of- factly what they were and how they joined up. The Canadian was a farmer. His mother is working his farm now. The Australian ran a little bicycle shop—his girl is running that for him. The New Zealander was a law student. But though they all know how they joined up, none of them knows why. They protest loudly when Leslie Howard accuses them of being idealists—even when he tempers the blow by saying “ practical idealists.” To prove his theory, he takes them to the top of St. Paul’s (the film was made early in the year), and says “ Well, there’s London—‘ happy for the wholesomeness of its air, the Christian religion and its most worthy liberty.’ ” He points towards the Surrey hills and mentions Kingston —“ King’s Town," he explains, “ where some of the early English kings were crowned—the coronation stone’s still in the market place. Those chaps made their mark on London. Alfred the Great, for instance." They all know Alfred the Great, and for the same reason as the rest of us—he was the chap who burnt the cakes. I’m afraid we honour our best king by remembering him as our worst cook," says Leslie Howard, and reminds them that Alfred also drove the Danes out of London. Then, having defeated the enemy, he baptised them and the two sides lived in peace and intermarried. " Typically English," he comments. Then turning to the New Zealander, he adds, “ Incidentally, the word ’ law ’ came from the Danes.” In the little village of Petersham, he tells the Canadian, Captain George Vancouver is buried. Out Staines way, he says, is Runnymede. This they know—Magna Carta was sealed there. The New Zealander supplies the quotation. “ No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or in any way destroyed nor will we send upon him except by the lawful judg- ment of his peers and the law of the land.” “ That’s the famous clause," says Leslie Howard. “ To-day it’s an elementary principle of justice all over the commonwealth. Don’t forget you fellows own this London as much as we do,” he adds, “ and that’s yours too.” His finger points at the Houses of Parliament. “ You have your own Parliaments now,” he tells them, “ but that’s the mother of them all; it mothered the American Congress, too. To-day we can all be proud that in the old House of Commons, Englishmen cheered the victories of the American colonists over ourselves and the German mercenaries our leaders had hired against the wishes of the people—when old Chatham, a dying man, dragged himself to the House and told them that forty thousand German boors would never defeat ten thousand British freemen fighting for the very principles we had fought for and established ourselves. ** Yes, it’s all there," he finishes. “ British city—Roman city— Saxon—Dane—Norman—English. Once it ended here, just about where we are standing, and as it pushed out a tentative street here and a casual row of houses there, so our fathers’ minds crept along with it—their ideas of justice and tolerance and the rights of man taking shape in the sunlight and in the smoke, sometimes standing still, or slipping back, but slowly broadening with the centuries until their sons carried them across the earth. Some of those ideas are set down in the Constitutions of our Commonwealth—others are unwritten, we try to carry them in our minds and hearts. One day, not so long ago, an English colonial officer put part of those into words—like this : ‘ We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created with inalienable rights ; that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. . . .’ Those words and that spirit, and those other things, were bom and nourished here— at the heart of the Empire. They are our common heritage. That’s why you came here to defend it.” There's a pause—then he says he thinks he could do with another pint. So do the others. And that seems to be typically British. PS 113 H