Synopsis
"This Land Is Mine" (1943) — watch online Jean Renoir's wartime drama on iFILM. Charles Laughton plays Albert Lory, a timid schoolteacher in a Nazi-occupied European town who has spent his entire life afraid of everything.
Lory is not a hero. He flinches at air raids, defers to authority, and clings to his elderly mother. Around him: a collaborationist principal (George Sanders) who has decided pragmatism beats principle, a teacher named Louise (Maureen O'Hara) Lory quietly loves, and a German officer (Walter Slezak) who is courteous, organized, and dangerous. The Resistance operates somewhere offscreen — nobody asks Lory to join.
Renoir made this in Hollywood in 1943, in the middle of the war. There is no straight propaganda here — instead it is a study of what it takes for a frightened, ordinary man to finally open his mouth. The courtroom speech at the end is genuinely riveting. Stream "This Land Is Mine" (1943) online on iFILM.
Starring
Comments 0