Hanover Street (DVD)

...of war-torn London (the fictitious Hanover Street to be precise) and are immediately attracted to each other. David, an American pilot, is eager that they meet up again, but there is a problem - Margaret is already married to Paul, with whom she has a daughter. Eventually, she casts this tiny problem aside in the rush of her love for David and they embark upon an affair. Then David and Paul are coincidentally sent on the same mission to France and ...
...from the mission alive? Will they realise that they are both in love with the same woman? And how will Margaret cope with the loss of either her husband or lover?

I am not a fan of films about war or love, but the fact that Harrison Ford and Christopher Plummer both starred in this film encouraged me to watch it. Made way back in 1979, when Harrison Ford was a young man, this is a passable film that whiled away a couple of hours one ... more

Margaret and David meet in the middle of war-torn London (the fictitious Hanover Street to be precise) and are immediately attracted to each other. David, an American pilot, is eager that they meet up again, but there is a problem - Margaret is already married to Paul, with whom she has a daughter. Eventually, she casts this tiny problem aside in the rush of her love for David and they embark upon an affair. Then David and Paul are coincidentally sent on the same mission to France and are forced to protect each other. Will they both return from the mission alive? Will they realise that they are both in love with the same woman? And how will Margaret cope with the loss of either her husband or lover?

I am not a fan of films about war or love, but the fact that Harrison Ford and Christopher Plummer both starred in this film encouraged me to watch it. Made way back in 1979, when Harrison Ford was a young man, this is a passable film that whiled away a couple of hours one afternoon, but on the whole, I wish I had followed my intuition and left it alone.

Harrison Ford plays David. Despite his obvious youth, he is still immediately recognisable - those craggy looks certainly can't have won him any prizes for his beauty. As David, a young man fighting for a war that he believes in, although horrified at the death and pain that it brings, he gives a competent performance. That is, there is little to criticise, but nor is there really much to praise - the role simply isn't deep enough to allow Ford any room to show what he can do. The most reaction he inspired in me was annoyance at his flippant attitude to his superior's commands.

Lesley-Ann Down plays Margaret. The moment she appeared at the beginning of the film she irritated me. She speaks with a very clipped, posh English accent and over-exaggerates all her moves to the extent that I just couldn't warm to her. On top of that, there is no on-screen chemistry with Harrison Ford, so the warmth that their relationship should inspire just doesn't happen. A very disappointing performance. I was interested to see that her screen daughter (also an annoying little madam) is played by Patsy Kensit - the deliberately exaggerated way that Kensit played Sadie in Emmerdale is exactly the way Down plays Margaret - the only problem is I don't think Down's acting was supposed to come across that way.

Paul, Margaret's husband, is played by Christopher Plummer, for whom I will always have a soft spot because of his role in The Sound of Music. Like Ford, he gives a competent performance, but it is really nothing outstanding. His on-screen relationship with his wife is hard to believe in, again because of the lack of chemistry, despite his protestations that she means the world to him.

The idea of the plot is promising - man and woman fall in love against the odds - but it just doesn't quite come off. This is partly because of the lack of chemistry between Lesley-Ann Down and both David and Paul, but also partly because of the screenplay. The scenes between Ford and his fellow pilots were particularly bad - they were supposed to show the horror of war, but the lines just fell flat. Half an hour into the film, I nearly gave up because of the long periods of inane chatter.

Probably the highlight (or should I say the most interesting) of the film for me was the scenes showing bombing in central London. My grandmother has often told me stories of what it was like to live in war-torn London and it was fascinating to see my idea of what it must have been like come alive. The scenes shot in France and from the cockpit of David's plane were less believable and were obviously done on a very tight budget - I would have expected better sets for a film made in the late seventies.

On the whole, this wasn't a terrible film. It just wasn't a very good one. I would not recommend that anyone went out of their way to buy a copy, but it is worth a look if you ever catch it on television.

If you do want to buy the film on DVD, it is available from play.com for £5.99.

Classification: PG

Running time: 109 minutes 

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