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The New Lot (1943) More at IMDbPro »

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The model for "The Way Ahead", 15 May 2006

Author: Lester May from Camden Town, London, England

Made by the Army Kinetographic Service, this training film was aimed at conscripts. This short film takes five different raw recruits and shows how, during basic training, they gradually come to terms with both their new role in the Army and the need for them to fight.

The Director, Captain Carol Reed, and the writers, Lieutenant Eric Ambler and Private Peter Ustinov, of this film were later released by the War Office to direct and write "The Way Ahead" (1944) starring David Niven. This feature film was modelled on "The New Lot", though it included officers as well as conscripts, and was intended to do for the Army what "In Which We Serve" had done for the Royal Navy.

Quite neatly done, "The New Lot" starts with the recruits each in their last days in their very different civilian environments. They all embark a train - pulled by the Southern Railway's Lord Nelson Class locomotive "Sir Walter Raleigh" (BR No. 30852 - built 1928 and withdrawn from service in 1962) - where they begin to get to know each other en route for the training barracks.

It's propaganda, of course, and not very exciting but it will raise a smile here and there. It will certainly be of interest to those who know classic British cinema and TV from the 1940s to the 1980s. Look out for some famous names and well-known faces.

This short was released on a region-free DVD called "The Next of Kin" by DD Home Entertainment in the UK in 2005, as part of the Imperial War Museum official collection.

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