The Way to the Stars

Pilot Officer Peter Penrose (John Mills) is posted in the summer of 1940 as a pilot to (the fictional) No. 720 Squadron,[N 1] at a new airfield, RAF Station Halfpenny Field. He is a very green "15-hour sprog" Bristol Blenheim pilot and is assigned to B Flight, under Flight Lieutenant David Archdale (Michael Redgrave).

When No. 720 Squadron's commanding officer, Squadron Leader Carter (Trevor Howard, in his second but first credited film role), is shot down, Archdale takes over. While Penrose develops into a first-class pilot, he meets Iris Winterton (Renee Asherson), a young woman living with her domineering aunt at the Golden Lion hotel in the nearby town. Archdale marries Miss Todd (Rosamund John), the popular manager of the hotel, who is known to everyone as Toddy. The Archdales later have a son, Peter.

The action flashes forward to May 1942. The squadron is now flying Douglas Boston bombers. When Penrose shows signs of strain from extensive combat, Archdale has him posted to controller school, but is himself shot down and killed over France on Penrose's last mission. Penrose had been courting Iris, despite her aunt's disapproval, but Archdale's fate weighs heavily on his mind. Not wanting Iris to suffer if the same happened to him, he stops seeing her.

No. 720 Squadron is sent to the Middle East, but Penrose remains behind as a ground controller for a United States Army Air Forces B-17 Flying Fortress bombardment group, which takes over the airfield. He befriends USAAF Captain Johnny Hollis (Douglass Montgomery) and Lieutenant Joe Friselli (Bonar Colleano). On 17 August 1942, the American airmen participate in the first attack by the USAAF on Occupied France, later ruefully acknowledging that they underestimated the difficulties involved. Afterwards, Penrose is posted to flying duties with an RAF Avro Lancaster bomber squadron.

In 1944, Penrose, now a Squadron Leader and Pathfinder pilot, makes an emergency landing at Halfpenny Field, where he meets Iris again. Iris had decided to leave her aunt for good and join up. Toddy persuades a still-reluctant Penrose to propose to Iris, saying that she did not regret her own marriage in spite of her husband's death. Hollis, who has formed a platonic relationship with Toddy, is killed while trying to land a damaged returning bomber with a large bomb still on board rather than bail out and risk it crashing into the village.

Two poems supposedly written by David Archdale were used in the film. They were written by John Pudney earlier in 1941 or 1942.[4] The first poem is Missing. Archdale is portrayed as reciting it to Toddy shortly before their marriage, after his close friend Squadron Leader Carter is killed in action. Archdale tells Toddy that "I try and say things I feel that way sometimes. Sort of hobby" and tells her she's the only one who knows he writes poetry.

Missing

The second and better known of the two poems in the film is For Johnny, portrayed as having been found by Peter Penrose on a piece of paper after David Archdale's death. Penrose gives it to Toddy Archdale, who later in the film gives it to Johnny Hollis' friend Joe Friselli to read after Hollis is killed.

For Johnny

• Michael Redgrave as David Archdale
• John Mills as Peter Penrose
• Rosamund John as Miss Todd
• Douglass Montgomery as Johnny Hollis
• Stanley Holloway as Mr Palmer
• Renée Asherson as Iris Winterton
• Felix Aylmer as Reverend Charles Moss
• Basil Radford as "Tiny" Williams
• Bonar Colleano Jnr. as Joe Friselli
• Joyce Carey as Miss Winterton
• Trevor Howard as Squadron Leader Carter
• David Tomlinson as "Prune" Parsons
• Nicholas Stuart as Colonel Rogers (credited as Tryon Nichol)
• Bill Owen as "Nobby" Clarke (credited as Bill Rowbotham)
• Grant Miller as Lieutenant Wally Becker
• Jean Simmons as a singer

During the war, Rattigan served in the Royal Air Force as a tail gunner, and used his wartime experiences to help inspire his earlier stage play, Flare Path. In 1945, he was released from the service to help rewrite it with Anatole De Grunwald as a film screenplay of The Way to the Stars. Although Michael Redgrave and John Mills were the leads, the film offers very early performances from two actors who would themselves become international film stars in later years: Jean Simmons and Trevor Howard.[5]

Filming was mainly in North Yorkshire and some of the locations remain little changed.[6] RAF Catterick was used to film the RAF Halfpenny Field scenes,[7] Bedale was used for street scenes outside the pub in the local small town, the Golden Lion Hotel in Northallerton was used as the pub, and Constable Burton Hall was used as the USAAF headquarters.[8]

Footage of B-17 Flying Fortresses landing and taking off was filmed at RAF Grafton Underwood in Northamptonshire.[9] One of the USAAF aircrew involved recorded in his diary seeing B-17s of the 384th Bombardment Group (Heavy) and ground scenes including the crash of Captain Holliss' B-17 being filmed at Grafton Underwood.[10]

As well as B-17s, the other aircraft used in filming were Avro Ansons, Bristol Blenheims, Hawker Hurricanes, and a Douglas Boston. They came from a variety of training and operational USAAF, RAF and Free French units, the Boston being from 342 Squadron, RAF / Groupe de bombardement Lorraine.[11]

There was a real airfield with a name resembling the fictional RAF Halfpenny Field, RAF Halfpenny Green airfield in Staffordshire. This was not used for filming and was used for training pilots, unlike the fictional airfield's role as a bomber airfield. That airfield is now home to Wolverhampton Halfpenny Green Airport.

On initial release the film was popular in Britain, one reviewer in June 1945 stating that "it must rank as one of the outstanding British films of the war years".[12] However, it performed poorly in the U.S. where it was released post-war as Johnny in the Clouds with a prologue added.[13]

According to Kinematograph Weekly the film performed well at the British box office in 1945.[14][15] The 'biggest winners' at the box office in 1945 Britain were The Seventh Veil, with "runners up" being (in release order), Madonna of the Seven Moons, Old Acquaintance, Frenchman's Creek, Mrs Parkington, Arsenic and Old Lace, Meet Me in St Louis, A Song to Remember, Since You Went Away, Here Come the Waves, Tonight and Every Night, Hollywood Canteen, They Were Sisters, The Princess and the Pirate, The Adventures of Susan, National Velvet, Mrs Skefflington, I Live in Grosvenor Square, Nob Hill, Perfect Strangers, Valley of Decision, Conflict and Duffy's Tavern. British "runners up" were They Were Sisters, I Live in Grosvenor Square, Perfect Strangers, Madonna of the Seven Moons, Waterloo Road, Blithe Spirit, The Way to the Stars, I'll Be Your Sweetheart, Dead of Night, Waltz Time and Henry V.[16]

Later reviews considered the film "... one of the more thoughtful of British war movies ..."[17] and an "excellent drama about a British airfield and the men stationed there, focusing mainly on personal relationships in wartime.".[18] The British Film Institute describes the film as "one of the most effective and understated films about the conflict made during the Second World War, though it features no combat scenes and only three (brief) shots from inside a cockpit". The BFI Screenonline reviewer stated that the film "effectively comments on the traditional emotional reticence of the British by weaving a critique of it into the fabric of the story, turning it into a theme of the film. The introduction in the film's second half of the American flyers (as exemplified by the wise-cracking Bonar Colleano, making his film debut) further emphasises this. It also puts into relief the film's main focus - Penrose's development from callow youth into a burned-out, emotionally detached pilot, and his eventual return to life and love".[19]

• The Way to the Stars at IMDb
• The Way To The Stars Filming Locations
• Review of film at Variety