For You Alone

BFI Most Wanted: the hunt for Britain's missing films

Directed by Geoffrey Faithfull, 1945

Wartime romantic melodrama, suggested by a popular song of the same title, with a young woman torn between her love for a naval officer and duty to an injured admirer.

Dennis and Stella about to part for ever (in reality, Dinah Sheridan and Jimmy Hanley were married)

Credits

Director Production Company Producer Screenplay Story Photography	Geoffrey Faithfull Butcher's Film Service F.W. Baker Montgomery Tully Kathleen Butler Ernest Palmer
Cast: Lesley Brook (Katherine Britton); Robert Griffith (John Bradshaw); Jimmy Hanley (Dennis Britton); Dinah Sheridan (Stella White); G.H. Mulcaster (Reverend Peter Britton); Manning Whiley (Max Borrow); Irene Handl (Miss Trotter); George Merritt (PC Blundell).
105 mins, 8,850 feet, sound, black & white.

Why are we so keen to find it?

From a reading of the synopsis, it seems to be a prime example of a British wartime melodrama (or 'sudser' as Variety would have termed it), with a then contemporary and now historically interesting theme: the romantic complications and heartache generated by separation thanks to wartime service. This was an aspect of the war that would have been all too familiar at the time. Certainly, the film appeared to strike a chord with cinemagoers, with re-releases in both 1948 and 1949.

It is also one of only two films to have been directed by cinematographer Geoffrey Faithfull. The other, I'll Turn to You (1946), starring Terry Randall and Don Stannard, was again centred on the romantic complications of wartime separation. However, that particular film survives (the BFI holds a 16mm print).

While the viewing of films by cinematographers turned directors often makes one wish they had never deserted, even if only temporarily, their true calling, For You Alone might just have been an exception to the rule. Regardless, a film that so obviously resonated with a large British audience is clearly deserving of retrieval.

What's it about?

The 8 March 1945 issue of trade journal The Kinematograph Weekly contains the most complete synopsis of the film:

"John Bradshaw, a lonely young naval officer, gets into conversation with the Rev. Peter Britton, a country parson, while attending a London Symphony Orchestra concert at Central Hall, Westminster. Katherine, Briton's attractive daughter, is with him, and she and John find much in common. Friendship ripens into love, but Katherine tells John that the recently reported death on active service of her soldier brother, Dennis, has been a great shock to her father and that for the moment she cannot think of matrimony. Shortly afterwards Dennis turns up fit and well with Max, a brother officer, who has always loved Katherine. Max has received serious eye injuries and Katherine feels duty-bound to accept his proposal of marriage. Later, John pays a visit to the vicarage, and, on learning of Katherine's engagement, thinks she has deliberately toyed with his affections. He decides to go away, but just before his departure children start a fire in the vicarage outhouse. John is badly burned while rescuing a child, and Katherine rushes to his aid. Max, recently reported out of danger by an eye specialist, witnesses the subsequent tender scene and promptly frees Katherine from her promise".

Last seen?

It was trade shown on 6 March 1945 at the Studio One cinema in London's Oxford Street, and went on general release on 28 May 1945. As mentioned above, it was re-released to British cinemas twice, in 1948 and 1949 (the final release was in a truncated version, shorn of 2062 ft), and was available for hire on 16mm in the 1960s, possibly even into the 1970s, from the British company Golden Films. It is also known to have been shown on US television in 1953 and 1955.

What else do we know about it?

The film appears to have been modelled on a previous Butcher's film that had no doubt proved successful, I'll Walk Beside You (1943), a romantic melodrama that was also based on a song of the same name. The two films shared a writer, Kathleen Butler (who supplied the screenplay for the first film and the original story of the second), and a wartime separation theme, as well as some of their casts: both starred Lesley Brook, with Irene Handl and George Merritt as comic support.

However, the presence in For You Alone of both classical (in addition to popular) music and a character with eye injuries also suggests that, in the interim, both Butler and screenwriter Montgomery Tully had seen the Gainsborough 'weepie' Love Story (1944), a box office success which had featured both Stewart Granger as a pilot with failing eyesight and the 'Cornish Rhapsody'. In response, For You Alone goes into overdrive with strains from 'The Merry Wives of Windsor', 'Tales from the Vienna Woods' and 'Flight of the Bumblebee', performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and Albert Sandler and his Orchestra.

Does anything survive?

No film materials are known to survive, but as the film was available on 16mm in this country relatively recently, and has been broadcast on US television (albeit in the 1950s), there is hope that at least a 16mm print may be in the hands of a private collector (Golden Films distributed many British films, a number of which may now be considered as 'lost'). The BFI holds a collection of stills, five black and white lobby cards and a press book.

Reviews

In advance of its trade show, The Kinematograph Weekly (1 March 1945) predicted that "with a romantic story, a first-class cast and the inclusion of Albert Sandler and his orchestra with Helen Hill, the London Symphony Orchestra, and the famous tenor, Heddle Nash, For You Alone will be a musical and romantic triumph" (Nash sings the title song and Hill 'Bless This House').

It seems to have been just that, both commercially and critically, at least in the trade press. While the Monthly Film Bulletin (31 March 1945) complained that the film was overlong and that many scenes of wartime village life could have been omitted, trade reviews were largely enthusiastic on all fronts. For The Kinematograph Weekly (8 March 1945), Lesley Brook "handles the sentimental end with understanding and genuine feeling", while the same journal offered this summation: "Clean, refreshing story, happy sentiment, good music, popular songs, strong feminine angle and box office title".

Today's Cinema (23 March 1948), reviewing the film's first reissue, saw no decline in its appeal: "The passage of time deals kindly with a picture of this pattern - an expertly confected blend of wholesome sentiment, light-hearted comedy, moving pathos and well-loved music."

John Oliver, Curator (Fiction), BFI National Archive

You can find more about British films of the mid-1940s, including entries on surviving films and video clips for users in UK schools, colleges, universities and public libraries, at BFI Screenonline. You can also view similar titles at the BFI Mediatheques.