The Story of a Flemish Farm

The Story of a Flemish Farm
Directed by	Jeffrey Dell
Written by	Jeffrey Dell, Jill Craigie
Produced by	Sydney Box
Starring	Clive Brook, Clifford Evans, Jane Baxter
Cinematography	Eric Cross
Music by	Ralph Vaughan Williams
Distributed by	Two Cities Films
Release date	6 September 1943
Running time	82 minutes
Language	English

The Story of a Flemish Farm (or The Flemish Farm) is a 1943 film, based on an actual war-time incident. The film was made with the cooperation of both the Belgian government and the British Air Ministry.

Plot

In May 1940, as German forces sweep across France and Belgium, the remains of the Belgian Air Force are bottled up near the Flemish coast, and billeted at a farm in the Flemish countryside. Ordered by their government to surrender, the commander gives orders that the regimental colours be honorably buried, rather than surrendered to the invaders. The few pilots with servicable aeroplanes fly to England to join the Allied airforces, whilst those remaining are forced to surrender.

Six months later, after fighting in the Battle of Britain, Jean Duclos, now a squadron leader, is persuaded by a fellow officer to return with him to retrieve the colours. The latter is killed before he can leave and Duclos persuades the authorities to parachute him into Belgium. He contacts his former commanding officer, now living as a civilian and secretly operating a resistance group. Duclos then returns incognito to the farm, where his late colleague's wife and child still live. She is initially unwilling to reveal where the colours are buried, believing that they aren't worth dying for. But she relents and the colours are retrieved.

Duclos must now travel through several hundred miles of dangerous and heavily guarded country to reach neutral Spain, from where he returns to England. On his return, the colours are paraded and formally re-presented to the Belgian Air Force.

Cast

Clive Brook - Major Lessart

Clifford Evans - Squadron Leader Jean Duclos

Jane Baxter - Tresha

Wylie Watson - Flemish farmer

Philip Friend - Fernand Matagne

Ronald Squire - Hardwicke

Brefni O'Rorke - Minister

Mary Jerrold - Mme Duclos

Charles Compton - Ledoux

Irene Handl - Frau

Score

The film score, by Ralph Vaughan Williams, is titled The Story of a Flemish Farm and comprises 7 movements, which follow the flow of the story:

1. The Flag Flutters In The Wind
2. Night By The Sea/Farewell To The Flag
3. Dawn In The Old Barn/The Parting Of The Lovers
4. In The Café
5. The Major Goes To Face His Fate
6. The Dead Man's Kit
7. The Wanderings Of The Flag

Vaughan Williams conducted the suite himself at a Promenade concert in July 1945. Christopher Thomas, writing in a record review, commented: "The bold strength of the melodic writing is highly idiomatic and reflects VW at the height of his creative powers shortly before the works that were to form the symphonic "Indian Summer" of his later years."

The suite was recorded by the RTE Concert Orchestra under Andrew Penney

Locations

One scene was filmed on Chelfham Viaduct, formerly of the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway in North Devon

External links

• IMDB entry for The Flemish Farm
• Excerpts from the film score, by Ralf Vaughan Williams