The White Cliffs of Dover (1944)

Why so much hype?

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Excellent but underrated film

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

. . . by "Bad Karma" stemming from a cursed chess set, MGM movie studio tells theater goers during THE WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER, released while the final outcome of WWII was still in doubt. Much of this story revolves around U.S. First Lady Dolly Madison's board game, looted from our White House before British arsonists torch the place during their invasion of the USA in the 1800s. (Now, with the notorious British "Brexit" vote producing a record 1200-point drop of the New York Stock Exchange Feb. 5, 2018, it's clear that the wall from Key West to the tip of Maine on America's East Coast MUST be at least twice as high as that wall to the south!) Though Col. Forsythe goes through the motions of repatriating Dolly's Game of Kings toward the end of this flick, Wikipedia reports that it was sent back with missing rooks. Tensions between the USA and England are higher now than they have been since Dolly was baking her Lady Fingers in the White House ovens, which is the main reason that the hands of the "Doomsday Clock" were recently moved forward to 11:59 PM (Greenwich Standard Time). The big takeway from THW WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER is for America to keep her eagle eye upon this so-called "United Kingdom" in order to insure that we never get rooked again!

With a title based on a very popular song on both sides of the pond in those World War II years, The White Cliffs Of Dover is seen in flashback by Irene Dunne of her life as an American in Great Britain in the years covering two World Wars. It was one of those hands across the oceans films so popular in those days.I heard it said that the main fact about the 20th Century that one should realize in studying it is that the United States and Great Britain both spoke a common language. That fact made us overcome a few cultural differences and was the reason America entered two World Wars to save a Great Britain from invasion.Thus it was for Irene Dunne who came over with her father Frank Morgan on holiday in 1914 and met and married a minor titled fellow played by Alan Marshal. Marshal is killed and she spends a long widowhood raising their son and heir to his title. She lives with her mother-in-law, Gladys Cooper and raises her son who at various times is played by Roddy McDowall and Peter Lawford. The son rather fancies the daughter of one of their tenants played at various times by Elizabeth Taylor and June Lockhart.Of course this interoceanic love feast has a rather rocky beginning, especially when Frank Morgan while arguing chess with C. Aubrey Smith gets confronted with the fact that the chess board and pieces were the property of the looted White House from the War of 1812. It's my favorite scene in the film.Dunne who ages gracefully and magnificently gives a stirring performance as a woman who lost what she loved in one war and is ready to sacrifice again for her adopted country. I've a feeling that the folks at MGM might have had her character as an answer to that real female American expatriate, Lady Nancy Astor and that we were all not members in good standing of the Nazi appeasing Cliveden set.There's also a scene similar to the one in Mrs. Miniver where Greer Garson has to entertain a wounded German flier, Helmut Dantine where he's made a symbol of what they're at war against. Dunne, Morgan, and McDowall entertain a pair of German boys on holiday and when the discussion turns to politics it gets pretty heated. These two are thinking nothing more than winning what they should have won back in 1918.The White Cliffs Of Dover is a nice film, typical of the era it came out of. You do wonder though if Irene Dunne had met a nice German guy from the Weimar Republic days how that might have been dealt with.

Made in 1944, this film was obviously designed to remind the millions of American and British service people that, despite their differences, they were all related, and worth dying for! One of the many things that stands out for me in this film is the prominent role that women's points-of-view plays. It's hard to imagine this film being made five years earlier or later. But by '44, women's sacrifices - of both themselves and their sons and husbands - were so real, and so emotionally charged, that the nobility of such sacrifice could be writ large on the silver screen.The fact that they use Dieppe as a poignant symbol was surely intended to prepare audiences for the NEXT landings in Europe, which were already being planned. I wonder if there really ever were Americans ashore in the Dieppe raid? I doubt it. But the symbolism of a yank, a brit, and a canuck dying in the same shell-hole was obviously too good to pass up.The cast is exceptional, with bit parts by the very young Elizabeth Taylor and Peter Lorrie standing out.

This was an incredible War movie which spanned WWI and WWII. It was a romance/drama. Irene Dunne is the female lead who falls in love with and marries a man who soon goes off to fight in France during World War I. He dies and she had his child, a boy.The boy grows to manhood and is played by Peter Lawford. As the movie ends, Dunne is seeing her son, Lawford go off to fight in WWII. You can see the pain and the pride in Dunne's eyes.It was a fabulous movie. It dramatizes the great sacrifices made by the British in both World Wars. Britain lost so many of her sons in WWI, I believe the stats were approximately 50% of men between the ages of 18 and 45. The movies points up the fact that the loses, pain and suffering of the English were about to be revisited in WWII.I can appreciate this and other war movies as I am the mother of a Marine who is about to be sent to Iraq.