Just after World War I, the Gibbons family moves to a nice house in the suburbs. They live an ordinary life throughout the years, but everything changes when World War II breaks out.
Episodic telling of 20 years of the working-class Gibbons family in their South London rental house from 1919 to 1939--from just after the conclusion of WWI to just before the start of WWII. Beyond the profound effect of such world events on their lives, and the ebbs and flows of general western society in all aspects, husband and wife Frank and Ethel Gibbons must hold their family together through other, more personal events. Besides their immediate family, their household consists of her mother, Mrs. Flint, who is always feigning that she is on her deathbed; and his spinster sister Sylvia Gibbons, who clings to odd notions of life as her only sense of independence; these two don't get along, each seeing the other as an intrusion on the household. The three Gibbons offspring are a disparate group but generally get along. Only son Reg is easily swayed, especially by his best friend Sam Leadbitter, who wants to see social justice at all cost. While she secretly loves Sam, level-headed older daughter Vi doesn't like Sam's influence on Reg and his life choices. Younger daughter Queenie hates their "common life" and will do almost anything to escape it, meaning that she will not marry Billy Mitchell, who has always loved her, and she has always loved him in her own way although he isn't her idea of husband material. Billy, a career sailor in the British Navy, is the son of their next-door neighbor, Frank's best friend and "Johnnie Walker and soda"-drinking buddy Bob Mitchell; they originally met on the battlefield in 1915, fighting for the British in different regiments.—Huggo
Noël Coward's attempt to show how the ordinary people lived between the wars. Just after World War I, the Gibbons family moves to a nice house in the suburbs. They have an ordinary sort of life through the years with an average number of highs and lows until the outbreak of World War II.—Steve Crook <[email protected]>
Opening shortly after World War I, the film focuses on landmark events in the lives of the working class Gibbons family after they settle in a new home in Clapham in South London. The household includes Frank, his wife Ethel, their three children Reg, Vi, and Queenie his widowed sister Sylvia, and Ethel's mother. Living next door is Bob Mitchell, who served with Frank in the army.
Frank finds employment in a travel agency. As the children grow up and the country adapts to peacetime, the family attend a number of events, such as the British Empire Exhibition held at Wembley in 1924.
Reg becomes friendly with Sam, a staunch Socialist, who is attracted to Vi. Queenie is pursued by Bob's sailor son Billy, but she longs to escape the suburbs and lead a more glamorous life elsewhere.
During the General Strike of 1926, Reg is injured in a brawl in Whitechapel Road. Vi blames Sam, who had brought her brother to the area, but eventually her anger dissipates and she agrees to marry him.
In 1928, Charleston dance mania arrives in England, and an enthralled Queenie exhibits her fancy steps at the local dance hall. As all of London is swept up in the Jazz Age, news of new German chancellor Adolf Hitler begins to appear in the newspapers. Reg marries Phyllis and Billy proposes to Queenie yet again, but she confesses she is in love with a married man and soon after runs off with him, to the great distress of her mother, who says she cannot forgive her and never wants to see her again.
As time passes, Aunt Sylvia discovers spiritualism, Reg and Phyllis are killed in a car crash, and Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists, tries to stir up anti-Semitic sentiment in the city. Stanley Baldwin becomes Prime Minister, King George V dies, and Ethel's mother passes away. Billy, home on leave from the Royal Navy, announces he saw Queenie in France. Abandoned by her lover, she opened a tearoom to try to make ends meet, and she deeply regrets having left home. Billy reveals they are married and he has brought her back to London, and she and Ethel are reunited when her mother forgives her for her indiscretion.
With World War II on the horizon, Queenie has a baby, which she leaves in the care of her parents when she joins her husband in Singapore. Frank and Ethel, faced with an empty nest, decide to sell their house and move to a flat.
