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Posted by admin on Thursday Sep 22, 2011 Under Comics
Sir John Mills – English Iconic Actor
Sir john Mills is one of England’s greatest acting Icons and is remembered for appearing in more than 100 films in a 70 years plus period. Sir John Mills was born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills on February 22nd 1908, at the Watts Naval Training College in North Elmham, Norfolk, England. The young Mills grew up in Belton, where his father was the headmaster of the village school and in in Felixstowe, Suffolk, where his father was a mathematics teacher and his mother was a theatre box-office manager. As a fan of John Mills my favourite of his films was “Ice Cold in Alex”, “The Colditz Story” and “Great Expectations”.
After training as a dancer, he was first on stage in the chorus of The Five O’Clock Revue (1929) and was regularly on the London stage, in revues, musicals and straight plays, throughout the 30s, as well as making films before war broke out. He is an engaging juvenile lead in such 1930s pieces as The Ghost Camera (1933), the chirpy musical Car of Dreams (1935), the love interest for Nova Pilbeam’s Tudor Rose (1936), and the schoolboy grown into soldier in Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939).
But WW2 changed everything for Mills, as it did for so many connected with British cinema. The roles he played ‘In Which We Serve’ (1942), ‘We Dive at Dawn’ (1943), ‘This Happy Breed’, ‘Waterloo Road’ (1944) and The Way to the Stars (1945) defined a new kind of British film hero. He was the boy next door in his ordinariness. He also established an everyman reliability under stress; showing himself to be decent, brave and loyal.
John Mills was always noted for his sincerity and believability rather than for romantic qualities. He topped the Picturegoer poll in 1947 for his performance as Pip, the personable everyman in ‘Great Expectation’s (1946), emphatically a figure for a supposedly more egalitarian Britain; the tormented hero, an industrial chemist who fears he may have committed murder, in The October Man (1947).
This ordinary decency was elevated in ‘Scott of the Antarctic’ (1948) to the status of national hero. It is the nobility of sacrifice for others which turns physical suffering and defeat into a spiritual triumph; a victory for the team rather than for charismatic individualism. In place of the debonair gentleman’s dash and charm, Mills embodied a boyish enthusiasm which is deepened by testing into a gritty determination to continue whatever the cost.
He was the shabby private detective in ‘The End of the Affair’ (1954). The twitchy, repressed military types in ‘Tunes of Glory’ (1960) and ‘Tiara Tahiti’ (1962) and he is ultimately very moving as the father in ‘The Family Way’ (1966) who may have loved no one as much as his dead mate.
John Mills was also much admired in ‘Morning Departure’ (1950) as a similarly inspirational leader, this time a submarine captain who has to encourage three of his crew, trapped with him in their stricken craft, to face death calmly. Despite his versatility as an actor, Mills continued to achieve his greatest success in similar roles: as Commander Fraser in ‘Above Us the Waves’ (1955), and as Pat Reid, the head of the escape committee, in ‘The Colditz Story’ (1955).
It was however as the captain in ‘Ice Cold in Alex’ (1958) that pushed by exhaustion into alcoholism, which really brought out the best in Mills. A superb piece of film-making that embodied most of the key characteristics of ‘being British’. There are two lovely scenes, the first being at the sand hill and ensuing tension when Syms and Mills meet at the bottom after the Landover rolls back down. The second I feel is at the bar where Mills drinks the Carlsberg and his character courageously addresses post war attitudes. In return Qualye’s character admits that the British were not what he had supposed them to be. Both of these statements would both have been very conciliatory at the time. Why ‘Ice Cold’ did not win Oscars…
Typically, then he got the Oscar for a grotesque piece of facial and vocal distortion in the inflated Ryan’s Daughter (1970) – supporting actor Oscars have always been drawn to this sort of cosmetic display – when one could nominate a dozen far less showy, more worthy contenders among his roles. Even in perfectly ordinary films like The Vicious Circle (1957), one never stops believing in him.
The later decades saw him many in character roles such as Gandhi (1982); Kenneth Branagh then enlisted him for Hamlet (1996) to play the mute role of `Old Norway’, for whom Shakespeare had thoughtlessly failed to produce lines. Though partially now deaf and blind, he still evidenced the chipper persona honed below the decks in those films half a century earlier. The achievement is there in the CV and it has been recognised with a CBE (1960), a Knighthood (1976) and the BAFTA Special Tribute Award (1987).
List Of Sir John Mills Films:
1932
The Midship Maid
1932
Words and Music
1933
The Ghost Camera
1933
Britannia of Billingsgate
1934
River Wolves
1934
A Political Party
1934
Those Were the Days
1934
The Lash
1934
Blind Justice
1934
Doctor’s Orders
1935
Royal Cavalcade
1935
Forever England
1935
Charing Cross Road
1935
Car of Dreams
1936
First Offence
1936
OHMS
1937
The Green Cockatoo
1939
Goodbye Mr Chips
1940
All Hands
1940
Old Bill and Son
1941
Cottage to Let
1941
The Black Sheep of Whitehall
1942
The Big Blockade
1942
The Young Mr Pitt
1942
In Which We Serve
1943
We Dive at Dawn
1944
This Happy Breed
1944
Victory Wedding
1945
Waterloo Road
1945
The Way to the Stars
1945
The Sky’s the Limit
1946
Great Expectations
1947
So Well Remembered
1947
The October Man
1948
Scott of the Antarctic
1949
The History of Mr Polly
1950
The Rocking Horse Winner
1950
Morning Departure
1951
Mr Denning Drives North
1952
The Gentle Gunman
1953
The Long Memory
1954
Hobson’s Choice
1955
The Colditz Story
1955
The End of the Affair
1955
Above Us the Waves
1955
Escapade
1956
War and Peace
1956
It’s Great to be Young
1956
The Baby and the Battleship
1956
Around the World in 80 Days
1957
Town on Trial
1957
Vicious Circle
1958
Dunkirk
1958
I Was Monty’s Double
1958
Ice Cold in Alex
1959
Tiger Bay
1960
Summer of the Seventeenth Doll
1960
Tunes of Glory
1960
The Singer Not the Song
1961
The Swiss Family Robinson (U.S.)
1961
Flame in the Streets
1962
The Valiant
1962
Tiara Tahiti
1963
The Chalk Garden
1964
The Truth About Spring
1965
Operation Crossbow
1966
King Rat (U.S.)
1966
The Wrong Box
1966
The Family Way
1967
Africa Texas Style (U.S.)
1967
Chuka (U.S.)
1969
Oh What a Lovely War
1969
Run Wild Run Free
1969
Emma Hamilton (Ger.)
1969
A Black Veil for Lisa
1971
Ryan’s Daughter
1971
Dulcimer
1972
Young Winston
1972
Lady Caroline Lamb
1973
Oklahoma Crude
1976
The Human Factor
1976
Trial by Combat
1977
The Devil’s Advocate
1978
The Big Sleep
1978
The 39 Steps
1979
Zulu Dawn
1982
Ghandi
1984
Sahara
1987
Who’s That Girl
1994
Deadly Advice
1995
The Grotesque
1996
Hamlet
1996
Bean
2003
Bright Young Things
Quotes:
I’ve never considered myself to be working for a living; I’ve enjoyed myself for a living instead.
Sir John Mills died aged 97 on 23rd April 2005 in The Chilterns, Buckinhamshire following a chest infection. A few months after Sir John’s death, his wife Mary Hayley Mills (Lady Mills) died on 1st December 2005. A British film actor par excellence, he was the last of his generation.
Please visit my Funny Animal Art Prints Collection @ http://www.fabprints.com
My other website is called Directory of British Icons: http://fabprints.webs.com
The Chinese call Britain ‘The Island of Hero’s’ which I think sums up what we British are all about. We British are inquisitive and competitive and are always looking over the horizon to the next adventure and discovery.
Copyright © 2010 Paul Hussey. All Rights Reserved.
About the Author
My family tree has been traced back to the early Kings of England from the 7th Century AD. I am also a direct descendent of Sir Christopher Wren which has given me an interest in English History and Icons which is great fun to research.
I have recently decided to write articles on my favourite subjects: English Sports, English History, English Icons, English Discoveries and English Inventions.
At present I have written over 100 articles which I call “An Englishman’s Favourite Bits Of England” in various Volumes.
Please visit my Blogs page http://Bloggs.Resourcez.Com where I have listed all my articles to date.
Copyright © 2010 Paul Hussey. All Rights Reserved.
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