This Happy Breed1944

Director
David Lean

Acters

Robert Newton (Frank Gibbons)
Celia Johnson (Ethel Gibbons)
Amy Veness (Mrs. Flint)
Alison Leggatt (Aunt Sylvia)
Stanley Holloway (Bob Mitchell)
John Mills (Billy Mitchell)

Just after World War I, the Gibbons family moves to a nice house in the suburbs. They lead an ordinary life throughout the years, but everything changes when World War II breaks out.
Episodic telling of twenty years of the Gibbons, a working class family, in their South London rental house from 1919 to 1939, namely from just after the conclusion of WWI to just before the start of WWII. Beyond the profound effect of world events, such as these wars, on their lives, and the ebbs and flows of general western society in all aspects, husband and wife Frank and Ethel Gibbons have to hold their family together through other more personal events. Besides their immediate family, their household consists of her mother and his spinster sister Sylvia Gibbons, the two not getting along in seeing the other an intrusion on the household.
“Noel Coward’s notable affection for the people of the British Isles and his particular talent for holding a theatrical mirror up to them are again most nicely demonstrated in the film made from his play, ‘This Happy Breed’.” – The New York Times
“This domestic saga was ground-breaking in its day and still captivates.” – Empire
“Their (Lean and Coward) adventurous excursion into suburban Clapham remains endlessly fascinating.” – Time Out