Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Borserie it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

comps-784-38265 What makes this film interesting to watch, apart from being a bloody good story, is it was made in 1944 and therefore designed as both entertainment and propaganda. Pre D-Day this film is preparing the audience for the trouble and potential defeats ahead. So interesting for historical insight. One of my favourite actors, David Niven, took time off of his day job (a war time army officer) to play a war time army officer, a reservist called up for the duration. With his seasoned sergeant to help, we follow the progress of new recruits as they are transformed in basic training from civilians to soldiers. Then as they go overseas to fight we follow there struggle, the film ends with them advancing forward bayonets fixed - the way ahead, in part preparing the audience for the onslaught of D-Day.Great classic film, proper story, good acting and historically interesting too. Great Sunday afternoon entertain, to watch with a cold beer.

robertguttman "The Way Ahead" is an interesting film produced in Britain during World War II to support the war effort by drawing on the talents of an outstanding group of noted British personalities, including Erik Ambler, Carol Reed, Peter Ustinov. The actors comprise and ensemble of some of the most recognizable British character actors of the 1940s and 1950s, not least among whom are David Niven and Peter Ustinov, who actually were serving in the British Army at the time. The plot follows a polyglot assortment of civilians who are drafted into the British Army at the Beginning of World War II, undergo basic training and eventually emerge as an efficient fighting unit. It is not a new story but it is done very well in this case, thanks to excellent writing and direction, and the equally expert ensemble cast.However, I must admit that I have only seen this film in the United States under it's alternative title, "the Immortal Battalion". I could not help coming away with the suspicion that the original film must have been somewhat cut and reedited before release in the U.S. I don't know for a fact if that was the case, but certain hints here and there in the story line, as well as certain odd gaps in continuity, suggest that may have been the case. I find it difficult to believe that Erik Amber, Peter Ustinov and Carol Reed would have been satisfied with such clumsiness of production, so I can only assume that the film must have been clumsily reedited later by somebody else. For that reason, I find it difficult to judge this film fairly without comparing it with the original UK version, which I strongly suspect differs somewhat from the version shown in the U.S. Nevertheless, I still recommended it highly.

Jumbajookiba I have a big soft spot for movies like this, they have an authenticity that modern films about this era don't have. As someone who is from several generations who served in the Military it's nice to see something that is contemporary of WW2 that is not gritty, just realistic. Yes, it may have been made at the time as propaganda, but,it doesn't glamourise or glorify, it attempts to tell you as it is. It even hints at the barrack room language without being able to include it (it is the 1940's after all)David Niven is marvellous in the lead role, he was a serving officer at the time and it shows as you never feel he is acting, the same with the supporting cast of solid British character actors, Stanley Holloway, James Donald, John Laurie (how lovely to see him not playing the dour Scotsman for once) and Leslie Dwyer stand out in particular. And isn't Peter Ustinov terrific in his small role, a taste of things to come with him.Highly recommended.

jandesimpson Although it may appear simplistic to divide the work of great artists into three distinct periods, there can be no escaping the fact that this tidy and convenient way of classification actually works for the majority. In the case of the most significant British director of the immediate post World War II years, Carol Reed, the chronological view works surprisingly well. There is the fairly anonymous early period up to "The Way Ahead" of 1944, a glorious middle period from "Odd Man Out" to "Outcast of the Islands" - the subsequent "The Man Between" and "A Kid for Two Farthings", although less successful, belong to this period because of their stylistic affinity - and a third period where Reed reverted to anonymity possibly through the pressures of commercialism - how else to explain works as dull as "The Agony and the Ecstasy" and "The Running Man", which do not even look like Reed films. Certainly none of the other films in the first period compare with the sheer enjoyment and confidence of "The Way Ahead". Here the youngish director flexes his muscles, a little parochially perhaps, before taking centre stage with the great directors of that time, De Sica, Rossellini, Welles and Wyler. Technically the film is astonishingly assured. Every shot is lovingly composed with figures always formally balanced within each frame. The editing is nothing short of brilliant. It is only in retrospect and with the advantage of several showings that one realises that the excitement and immediacy of a scene such as the torpedoing of the troopship are entirely achieved by the skill of montage. In every sense "The Way Ahead" is immeasurably superior to the Lean/Coward naval counterpart "In Which We Serve" which parades class distinctions in a way that is positively nauseous. There is nothing patronising in Reed's presentation of a group of men drawn together by the accident of war. Although they come from different social backgrounds, Reed presents them as conditioned by their varied forms of employment rather than being pigeonholed by class. "The Way Ahead" is that very unusual thing, a completely upbeat war film. I suppose it had to be, given its date - 1944. With the scent of victory about to be achieved it had to be an optimistic morale booster. However it goes very much further than any other I know in presenting a completely sanitised war. Not a single character is killed let alone wounded - and this even after the ship carrying the bulk of the cast is blown to smithereens just seconds after the captain leaves. The film ends with the men attaching bayonets to rifles before marching forward into a desert attack. By now we are conditioned into thinking they will all survive although we will never have a way of really knowing. Not that it matters at this stage. So sit back, relax and enjoy as lovely a war as you are ever likely to experience.