The Volunteer (1944 film)

The Volunteer (1944) is a short black-and-white British film directed, written and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and starring Ralph Richardson, Pat McGrath and Anna Neagle. It was produced for the British Ministry of Information during the Second World War, as recruitment propaganda for the Fleet Air Arm.^[1]

The Volunteer
Trade advertisement
Directed by	Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger
Written by	Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger
Produced by	Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger
Starring	Ralph Richardson Pat McGrath
Cinematography	Frederick Ford
Edited by	John Seabourne Michael C. Chorlton
Music by	Allan Gray
Release date	10 January 1944 (1944-01-10)
Running time	24 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

It was one of a highly regarded series of wartime collaborations between Powell and Pressburger, which also included The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) I Know Where I'm Going! (1945) and A Matter of Life and Death (1946).^[2]

The number of volunteers for the Fleet Air Arm rose after its release.^{[citation needed]}

Synopsis

The film features Ralph Richardson starring in a West End production of Othello. Pat McGrath plays his dresser, who joins the Fleet Air Arm and becomes a war hero as famous as Richardson himself. Anna Neagle and Laurence Olivier make cameo appearances, as does the film's director, Michael Powell, and another British film director, Anthony Asquith.

Cast

• Ralph Richardson as Lt Cmdr Ralph Richardson
• Pat McGrath as Fred Davey
• Anna Neagle as herself

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "With touches of quiet charm, domesticity and romance, Powell and Pressburger have built this into a plausible real-life story told by Richardson. Ingenious devices – the aircraft carrier's own newsreel, for example – fill in the picture of life in the Fleet Air Arm from the earliest days of training, through shore and shipboard work and play at Alexandria and Algiers, and finally into exciting action against a flock of German planes."^[3]

Kine Weekly wrote: "Fiendly, unaffected Fleet Air Arm 'personal' documentary ... Technically it is perhaps a trifle fragmentary, but on the other hand it is refreshingly free from conscious and pretentious patriotism. In all, an engaging recruiting poster, and quota at that! ... The picture is inconsequential in its planning, but natural acting, and easy, friendly commentary, nevertheless give it an agreeable air of authenticity. It's good propaganda and even better entertainment."^[4]

The director Michael Powell during filming for The Volunteer, 1943

Home media

The film is available as a supplement to The Criterion Collection DVD of Powell and Pressburger's film 49th Parallel (1941), and on the BFI's blu-ray edition (2001) of Powell and Pressburger's film One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942).^[5]