This Land Is Mine (film)
| This Land Is Mine | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Directed by | Jean Renoir |
| Produced by | Dudley Nichols |
| Screenplay by | Dudley Nichols Jean Renoir |
| Starring |
Charles Laughton Maureen O'Hara George Sanders |
| Music by |
Lothar Perl Friedrich Silcher |
| Cinematography | Frank Redman |
| Edited by | Frederic Knudtson |
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Production
company |
Jean-Renoir-Dudly Nichols Productions
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| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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103 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $1.4 million (US rentals) |
This Land Is Mine is a 1943 American drama film directed by Jean Renoir and starring Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara and George Sanders. The film is set in the midst of World War II, in an unspecified country in German-occupied Europe that is clearly France. Laughton plays Albert Lory, a cowardly school teacher in a town "somewhere in Europe" (according to the film's opening title card) who is drawn into advocating resistance through his love of his country and of his fellow teacher Louise Martin, portrayed by O'Hara.
The film is one of the more acclaimed of the propaganda-tinged war films of the era. It won the 1944 Academy Award for Best Sound Recording (Stephen Dunn). Having opened simultaneously in 72 theaters, the film set a record for gross receipts on an opening day upon its May 7, 1943 release.
Albert is an unmarried schoolmaster living with his dominating mother and secretly in love with his neighbour and fellow teacher Louise. Widely regarded as ineffectual, he embarrasses everybody by his panic during an Allied air raid. Louise is however engaged to George, the head of the raillway yard, who like many in the town believes that collaboration with the German occupation is the only logical course.
Her brother Paul, who works in the yard, is an active resister and, trying to kill the German commandant Major von Keller, instead kills two German soldiers. After turning a blind eye to previous acts of resistance in the hope of preserving good relations, von Keller must now act and takes ten hostages, saying they will be shot in a week if the guilty person is not found. Albert's mother, jealous of Louise, tells George that it was Paul. George tells von Keller and then, in a crisis of conscience, shoots himself. Albert bursts in a minute later, furious at discovering his mother's treachery, and is found with corpse and gun.
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