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Saturday, March 28, 2009

Hanover Street (1979) [PG] ***

Lt. David Halloran (Harrison Ford) is a B-25 bomber pilot stationed in England in 1943. While on a day pass to London, Halloran meets and falls in love with Margaret Sellinger (Lesley-Anne Down), a married hospital nurse. In Margaret, Halloran discovers a reason to live, begins to worry about dying during an Allied bombing raid over France, and becomes more cautious in his flying missions. In Halloran, Margaret discovers that she’s been living a dull, unfulfilled life with her husband Paul Sellinger (Christopher Plummer) and that, for the first time in her life, she feels real passion for someone.

Halloran and Margaret realize there’s no future for them, but they’re incapable of breaking off their relationship. Then, by coincidence or fate, Sellinger, who’s an Army Intelligence officer, decides to go to France to find out why the undercover agents he’s been sending are being exposed and killed, and Halloran is tasked with flying him.

The mission goes awry and their B-25 is shot down. Sellinger and Halloran, the only survivors, bail out and survive, thanks to a French Resistance fighter. Along the way Sellinger shows Halloran a picture of his wife, and Halloran, who never knew Margaret’s last name, realizes Sellinger is her husband. Eventually the two find their way to Lyon, where they infiltrate Gestapo HQ. Incredibly, they accomplish their intelligence mission and, with the help of the French Resistance, find their way back to London.

Written and directed by Peter Hyams, Hanover Street is moderately believable as a wartime love story and less believable as a war story. The third act in which Halloran and Sellinger escape from the Germans requires considerable suspension of disbelief.

Personally I’d have preferred more of a love story, with the war more in the background. Perhaps this reflects the choice of John Barry (1933-2011) as composer. If you are familiar with Barry’s work, you’ll recognize his lush, romantic, evocative style from his other films of the period, such as Moonraker (1979), Somewhere in Time (1980), Out of Africa (1985) and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986).

SPOILER ALERT: This film ends the way it’s supposed to end. Sellinger, who was wounded during their escape, is in a London hospital, where Margaret and Halloran meet and embrace for the last time. Today, it would not be so neat and clean. Why not? When you have a peak experience, whether trekking in the Himalayas, rescuing climbers on Mt. Hood, or bailing out of a burning airplane and surviving an intelligence infiltration of Gestapo HQ in Lyon, France, when you’re back home, who do you hang out with? With the people you had the peak experience with, of course. So, in the real world, Sellinger would have been eternally grateful to Halloran for saving his life and making his effort a success. He’d have invited Halloran into his home, and Halloran and Margaret would have, helplessly, continued their secret love affair. Two years later, assuming Halloran had not been killed in the war and Sellinger had not discovered what was happening, Halloran and Margaret would have had their love affair burn itself out, or they would have made plans for Margaret to divorce Sellinger and marry Halloran. Messy, but a lot more likely.

If you like this film, I recommend Every Time We Say Goodbye (1986) starring Tom Hanks and Cristina Marsillach, and Yanks (1979) starring Richard Gere, Lisa Eichhorn, Vanessa Redgrave and William Devane.

Labels: action, adventure, drama, flying, romance, WWII



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