The Way Ahead is a really enjoyable and really well disciplined war film covering an array of folk, each with their own separate walks of life, going on to serve not only one another but their country in the process of coming to learn of particular traits to do with responsibility and respect to one's seniors within a field. The nucleus of this 1944 British film is in the depiction of several different people of varying jobs and classes coming together and putting aside differing traits, with one another and their official superiors, to win through but its rawer achievement is when that content is essentially dealt with without necessarily affecting the film's overall quality as such. A lesser film would almost certainly have dropped its guard and settled for routinely seeing things out to a conclusion of some kind, a conclusion of which may not have been as interesting nor as necessary as what had preceded it. It is, therefore, much to the director Carol Reed's credit that they are able to mould what is a fascinating character study, consisting of the many but whose ventures are streamlined into being felt as one, before maintaining those levels of excitement and interest when a distinct shift in both tempo and content arrives and the film finally comes to shipping them out to the front-lines of World War Two. On both of those fronts; as a fascinating slice of wartime filmmaking and as a straight up piece of drama, The Way Ahead is a rigorous success.
The film begins with a slow sweep across a row of veterans from the First World War, disciplined; standing to attention; and wholly focused as they stand in their uniforms with medals on show, they represent a past generation of men encapsulated by bravery and duty whom aided in the maintaining of British life at time of great strife: a sense of the establishment of what "has been" and what "must follow" prominent. Reed blurs the boundaries between reality and non-reality by having one of the troops sneak a glance at the camera as it tracks past, a blurring which works with the film throughout as the following sequence adopts somewhat of a newsreel aesthetic in its presenting of British soldiers going through various training exercises.
These veterans share a tie to a specific Army squadron of varying distinctions throughout history, the new recruits this squadron takes on of whom, in the eyes of the veterans, are not up to standard and unable to carry on the former glories of the platoon. The film is, therefore, one of which that adopts a necessary framework of allowing its leads to prove their ability; the covering of a disparate collection of men from all walks of life going from one extreme to the other, from a working man with little knowledge, or even respect, of the Army and its routines to an all out as-one functioning fighting machine capable of doing what needs to be done in the heightened scenario of a war-zone.
In the beginnings, things are tough in amidst the throngs of war; a war people always thought would come but always hoped it wouldn't. Day-set bombing raids and rationing become the norm, and the rattling around of a local public house as well as those within whom attempt to get some sort of grip on the situation as bombs fall around them neatly amplifies the literal clinging onto the situation Britain finds itself in. At an Army camp a train journey away, some London based locals have been called for basic training and have arrived off of a truck in an unordered and scattered fashion at the barracks; something capturing their current placing in regards to working with one another. They are soon regimented and bullied into a form of conformity, William Hartnell's drill Sergeant Fletcher acting as a more immediate superior to that of local C.O. Jim Perry, played by David Niven, whom, bemusingly, has his presence pasted all over the film's posters despite having very little to do with what it is the film is actually about. The film is rather comedic during these exchanges of the opening third, misleadingly so; the new troops bouncing off of one another in a humorous manner as they come to despise Fletcher and struggle on through together - trips to a local stately home run by an elderly woman peppering proceedings and seeing her speak to them as if children, as if presently devoid of the masculinity the film will eventually come to instill them with at this time.
Despite being produced in 1944, a full year and maybe more before the conclusion of The Second World War, the film does not lean too heavily towards its propagandist undercurrents even if there is an unshakable sense that such undercurrents exist. Certainly, as The War raged on and all the strife that came with it further unravelled, how nice and assuring it would have been to attend a picture house documenting a bunch of rag-tag guys, the likes of whom may even live locally or next door, transcending from such a labelling to people capable of dealing with even the most harrowing of enemy instigated bother on the front-line in an ordered and professional manner. The film's pseudo-documentary characteristics are abound in the continuous updating of the viewer of European situations as the war factually mutated around the film's production, something which runs in sync with the breaking of the fourth wall in the very first scene and apparent 'live' opinions of various folk occupying Britain speaking without advancing anything on what it is should unfold to aid the war effort abroad. The film is wholly dramatic, but on very small scales early on as it depicts the forging of a fighting force, before opening up into war-zone set skirmishes that carry with them significant amounts of peril; the likes of which combine into a highly accomplished piece.
The film begins with a slow sweep across a row of veterans from the First World War, disciplined; standing to attention; and wholly focused as they stand in their uniforms with medals on show, they represent a past generation of men encapsulated by bravery and duty whom aided in the maintaining of British life at time of great strife: a sense of the establishment of what "has been" and what "must follow" prominent. Reed blurs the boundaries between reality and non-reality by having one of the troops sneak a glance at the camera as it tracks past, a blurring which works with the film throughout as the following sequence adopts somewhat of a newsreel aesthetic in its presenting of British soldiers going through various training exercises.
These veterans share a tie to a specific Army squadron of varying distinctions throughout history, the new recruits this squadron takes on of whom, in the eyes of the veterans, are not up to standard and unable to carry on the former glories of the platoon. The film is, therefore, one of which that adopts a necessary framework of allowing its leads to prove their ability; the covering of a disparate collection of men from all walks of life going from one extreme to the other, from a working man with little knowledge, or even respect, of the Army and its routines to an all out as-one functioning fighting machine capable of doing what needs to be done in the heightened scenario of a war-zone.
In the beginnings, things are tough in amidst the throngs of war; a war people always thought would come but always hoped it wouldn't. Day-set bombing raids and rationing become the norm, and the rattling around of a local public house as well as those within whom attempt to get some sort of grip on the situation as bombs fall around them neatly amplifies the literal clinging onto the situation Britain finds itself in. At an Army camp a train journey away, some London based locals have been called for basic training and have arrived off of a truck in an unordered and scattered fashion at the barracks; something capturing their current placing in regards to working with one another. They are soon regimented and bullied into a form of conformity, William Hartnell's drill Sergeant Fletcher acting as a more immediate superior to that of local C.O. Jim Perry, played by David Niven, whom, bemusingly, has his presence pasted all over the film's posters despite having very little to do with what it is the film is actually about. The film is rather comedic during these exchanges of the opening third, misleadingly so; the new troops bouncing off of one another in a humorous manner as they come to despise Fletcher and struggle on through together - trips to a local stately home run by an elderly woman peppering proceedings and seeing her speak to them as if children, as if presently devoid of the masculinity the film will eventually come to instill them with at this time.
Despite being produced in 1944, a full year and maybe more before the conclusion of The Second World War, the film does not lean too heavily towards its propagandist undercurrents even if there is an unshakable sense that such undercurrents exist. Certainly, as The War raged on and all the strife that came with it further unravelled, how nice and assuring it would have been to attend a picture house documenting a bunch of rag-tag guys, the likes of whom may even live locally or next door, transcending from such a labelling to people capable of dealing with even the most harrowing of enemy instigated bother on the front-line in an ordered and professional manner. The film's pseudo-documentary characteristics are abound in the continuous updating of the viewer of European situations as the war factually mutated around the film's production, something which runs in sync with the breaking of the fourth wall in the very first scene and apparent 'live' opinions of various folk occupying Britain speaking without advancing anything on what it is should unfold to aid the war effort abroad. The film is wholly dramatic, but on very small scales early on as it depicts the forging of a fighting force, before opening up into war-zone set skirmishes that carry with them significant amounts of peril; the likes of which combine into a highly accomplished piece.