David Lean brings to vivid emotional life Noël Coward's epic chronicle of a working-class family in the London suburbs over the course of two decades. Robert Newton and Celia Johnson are delightful as Frank and Ethel Gibbons, a couple with three children whose modest household is touched by joy and tragedy from the tail end of the WWI to the beginning of WWII.
With its mix of politics and melodrama, This Happy Breed is a quintessential British domestic drama, featuring subtly expressive Technicolor cinematography by Ronald Neame and a remarkable supporting cast including John Mills, Stanley Holloway, and Kay Walsh.
WINNER of 1947 National Board of Review Award – Best Actress – Celia Johnson.