Two Thousand Women

This has a really good cast - Flora Robson, Phyllis Calvert, Jean Kent, Patricia Roc and Renee Houston who deliver strong dramatic characterisations as women in an WWII internment camp who try their best to help repatriate British airmen - from right under the noses of their Nazi suzerains. What makes this stand out from many of the more intense contemporaries of wartime stoicism and bravery is that this is quite a cheery film. Not laugh out loud, but the women do have some comedic lines that serve well to keep this film entertaining as well as illustrative of their efforts at a time when the slightest slip up could get them all lined up against a wall. It was produced towards the end of the war and so, as you'd expect, has a certain propagandist element to it - but that is considerably more subtle, perhaps because in real life the tide had begun to turn in the Allies' favour and there was some light on the sunlit uplands. Flora Robson carried light-hearted roles well and she anchors this well. Rarely seen these days, but if you come across it then give it a go.

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