This was Terence Young's fourth outing behind the camera and perhaps wisely he opted to play it safe opting for a subject - the second world war - that was still providing material some five years after it ended and illustrating it via the usual tried-and-true clichés. After a somewhat stodgy, pedestrian opening Young allows his two protagonists, Edward Underdown and Ralph Campan, to steadily forge the friendship that is the core of the film. In true cliché style they met on their first day of basic training, graduated as officers together and served in the same regiment. We follow them in their day jobs through France post D-Day and in their other lives - Underdown happily married to Helen Cherry and Campan, a late developer, finding a wife of his own about the eighth reel. There was really only one way to end it and Young obliges by killing them both off in the last reel and having them buried in twin graves by a third man, a sergeant, who had also met them on the first day of basic training. Made in 1950 it's a tad hard to swallow in 2010.
Review of They Were Not Divided
