This Happy Breed Overview:

This Happy Breed (1944) was a Comedy - Drama Film directed by David Lean and produced by Ronald Neame.

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Robert Newton and Celia Johnson head the cast in David Lean’s “This Happy Breed”

By Stephen Reginald on Jul 30, 2023 From Classic Movie Man

Robert Newton and Celia Johnson head the cast in David Lean’s “This Happy Breed” This Happy Breed (1944) is a British drama directed by David Lean and starring Robert Newton, Celia Johnson, Stanley Holloway, and John Mills. The screenplay is by Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan, an... Read full article


This Happy Breed (1944)

By Beatrice on Nov 21, 2014 From Flickers in Time

This Happy Breed Directed by David Lean Written by Anthony Havlock Allen, David Lean, and Ronald Neame from a play by Noel Coward 1944/UK Noel Coward-Cineguild/Two Cities Films First viewing/Amazon Instant Video This is the episodic story of two neighboring middle-class London families between ... Read full article


"This Happy Breed" & "Brief Encounter"

By Jeremy Carr on Jul 10, 2013 From Studies in Cinema

David Lean is probably best known for large-scale super productions like Bridge on the Rive Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Doctor Zhivago (1965), and this is of course not without due reason; these, especially Lawrence, are tremendous films. But when you look at Lean’s body of wor... Read full article


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Quotes from

Frank Gibbons: [putting down the newspaper] Well, they're cutting down the navy, and they're cutting down the army. The only thing they don't seem to be cutting down is the unemployed!


Frank Gibbons: She didn't pass on, pass over, or pass out! She died!


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Facts about

The title 'This Happy Breed' is taken from a monologue of John of Gaunt's in Shakespeare's Richard II, act II, scene i, which is widely renowned for its stirring pro-Anglicism. It reads, in part, 'This happy breed of men, this little world, / This precious stone set in the silver sea, / Which serves it in the office of a wall, / Or as a moat defensive to a house, / Against the envy of less happier lands, / This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.'
David Lean's first film in color.
The swelling orchestral fanfare which plays over the film's final shots is based around the main theme of the then-popular patriotic song London Pride - a song written and most notably recorded by Noel Coward, the film's producer and author of the play upon which the film is based.
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Also directed by David Lean




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Also produced by Ronald Neame




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Also released in 1944




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