David Lean’s This Happy Breed: how the wartime London locations look 80 years later

David Lean was one of Britain’s most successful directors. Few managed to match his effective mixing of artful visuals, emotional depth and accessible drama, building a highly respected career littered with masterpieces such as The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Doctor Zhivago (1965). Yet Lean’s earlier, smaller-scale films often sit unfairly in the shadow of these later epics, and that’s certainly true of his brilliant yet underappreciated 1944 Noël Coward adaptation, This Happy Breed.

His second of a number of collaborations with Coward – including the following year’s Brief Encounter – This Happy Breed follows the life of a family between the wars. Frank (Robert Newton) and Ethel (Celia Johnson) live in suburban London. Their lives revolve around their three children: Queenie (Kay Walsh), Reg (John Blythe) and Vi (Eileen Erskine). Queenie dreams of stardom away from her ordinary life, while Reg and Vi wrestle with their personal lives and the changing world as ideologies rise and history unfolds. Added to the mix is a vast cast of characters, from other family members, including Ethel’s mother (Amy Veness), to neighbours such as Bob (Stanley Holloway) and his son Billy (John Mills). The film explores everyday life in all of its trials and tribulations; its joys and elations.

Though heavily studio-based, in line with its theatrical origins, This Happy Breed features some effective location filming in colour. For this explicitly south-west London narrative, Lean captured the suburban side south of the river, often using it as a framing device for longer, wordier segments in the studio. Yet Lean got further out into the city too, providing a larger than expected number of real locations to explore.

Here are five locations from Lean’s film as they stand today.

Lean’s film opens with a voiceover from Laurence Olivier as shots over London set the scene. Eventually the shots rest over Clapham and, finally, the main street of the film. This shot shows the redbrick houses of Alderbrook Road, the exact spot marked by the slight change in houses halfway down.

The houses of the film are a little way up from this shot and are distinguished by being pebble-dashed as opposed to having bare brick. Today, the pebble-dash has gone and the houses have been spruced up with an upmarket white paint-job.

The house where the family lives was number 53, though its ornate front door has been replaced by a more modern equivalent.

Various other shots of the road feature throughout the film. This shot, for example, shows the characters leaving to visit the British Empire exhibition at Wembley, and looks much further down the road.

The following shot gives a better perspective of the road, showing in particular the large school building that still sits behind the road today. The shot was clearly taken from the upper window of one of the houses, but some of the more pleasing street furniture, such as the street’s ornate lampposts, has long been replaced.

One of the final shots we see of the road shows Frank standing outside after the house has been sold. Even with the modern styling of the houses common to London today, their frontages are still recognisable.

Staying true to the south-west London setting, the church where Sam (Guy Verney) and Vi are married is only a few minutes down the road, between Streatham Hill and Balham. The church is the St Thomas and St Stephen Church, and this shot shows its entrance on Telford Avenue.

Another shot shows the opposite side of Telford Avenue and its rows of redbrick houses. These still closely resemble how they’re seen in the film today.

Finally, this shot of the church shows the pavement running alongside it, looking out along Telford Avenue again.

Later in the film, Frank and Ethel are seen relaxing on some chairs on the edge of a park. The park is Hyde Park and the road behind is Park Lane. The spot is marked in particular by The Dorchester Hotel, though it’s worth noting that Park Lane itself has been dramatically widened since the time of filming. It’s likely that the spot where the characters sat is now somewhere between the lanes of traffic.

After sitting for a time, the couple wander into town. They pass by Speaker’s Corner where they’re perturbed to hear a British fascist preaching. This shot is looking parallel to Park Lane though the little shelter seen behind has since vanished.

They stand in the crowd for a time before disappointedly walking away from Speaker’s Corner, allowing for a view of Marble Arch itself. Today, the vegetation of the park somewhat hides the view afforded in the film, though the general structure of the area is largely unchanged.

Lean makes interesting use of other south-west London locations within real walking distance of the main street and house of the film. These shots, for example, are taken on the nearby Clapham Common where trenches for the coming war are being prepared. The pond seen in the shot is Eagle Pond, while the beautiful houses seen in the background are on the south side of the common.

Lean provides a better view of Eagle Pond as he follows Ethel pushing the pram along the path around the water. The path is still there today, though the pond is now luscious with foliage.

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This Happy Breed screens at BFI Soutbank as part of Martin Scorsese Selects Hidden Gems of British Cinema in September.