Theirs Is the Glory (1946)

Interesting facts

Theirs Is the Glory, is a 1946 British war film about the British 1st Airborne Division's involvement in the Battle of Arnhem during Operation Market Garden in the Second World War. It was the first film to be made about this battle, and the biggest grossing UK war film for nearly a decade. The later film A Bridge Too Far depicts the operation as a whole and includes the British, Polish and American Airborne forces, while Theirs Is the Glory focuses solely on the British forces, and their fight at Oosterbeek and Arnhem.

Production

Using the original locations of the battle, the film featured veterans who were actual participants in the battle. The film was jointly produced by the J. Arthur Rank Organisation and the Army Film and Photographic Unit (AFPU).

Weaving original footage from the battle with re-enactments shot on location at Oosterbeek and Arnhem, the film was shot a year after the battle had ravaged the Dutch streets. As well as veterans, the film also features local people like Father Dyker (a Dutch civilian priest who conducts the service in the film) and Kate ter Horst (who reads Psalm 91 to the wounded men in the cellar) re-enacting their roles and what they did for the airborne troo…

Though no credits appear before or after the film, over 200 veterans appeared as actors, mainly playing themselves, including Lieutenant-Colonel John Frost, Majors CFH "Freddie" Gough and Richard "Dickie" Lonsdale, Lieutenant Hugh Ashmore, Sergeants Jack Bateman and John Daley, Corporal Pearce and Privates Tommy Scullion, Peter Holt, David Parker, George 'Titch' Preston, Frank 'Butch' Dixon, Reginald Spray, Looker and Van Rijssel and Albert Wood…

The narrator notes the soldiers as "just ordinary men". "But when you next watch the film look closely at the faces of the men and especially at their eyes in the many close shots that Brian Desmond Hurst arranged. When you look into the eyes you will start to gain a little bit of the experience that those ordinary men went through".

The film may have been the "Help for Heroes of its day". Hurst's biographer, Allan Esler Smith in "Theirs Is the Glory - 65th Anniversary of the filming of the movie" explains that "The popularity of Theirs Is the Glory allowed Arthur Rank, the head of the Rank Organisation, to fulfill his pledge to help the Airborne Forces Security Fund.

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