The way to the stars.

It is said that there is no period so remote as the recent past. I have always found that to be true, especially in regards to old British culture. The natural tendency is to misconstrue events which are not so old as to be out of memory and thus be subjected to purely objective analysis. In the case of Britain's pre-nineteen sixties achievements, this has been exacerbated by the routine sneering which has become the default position in our society.
I felt this strongly watching the wonderful old British film, the Way to the Stars, which was made in the immediate aftermath of WWII and is a beautiful meditation upon sacrifice, stoicism and heroicism, not qualities which are much in evidence these days. Everything about this film -made when my mother was in her twenties- is now completely alien to us, more so than probably the American films of the same vintage. Much of the old British slang used in it is now bearly comprehensible to us (I had difficulty understanding what Michael Redgrave was saying to start) while that used by the US pilots -mocked by the British in the film due to its novelty-is now so familiar to us that we can scarcely imagine a time when it was not so.
The attitudes, the way of speaking, in particular the clipped pronunciations, have been so mocked that it is worth remembering that those who spoke this way made a daily sacrifice to preserve this nation but if they could have seen how dimly they would be subsequently be viewed (beyond the platitudes of armistice day) and what their country would become, I wonder if they would have bothered.
The undermining of the wartime achievement began in the early 60s with that most influential of satirical reviews, Beyond the Fringe. The only surviving part of which is, appropriately enough, the aftermyth of war.
It has been correctly assessed any number of times that this new type of satire, created by privileged university wits, was caused by the deep rooted sense of inferiority felt by the post war generation towards their parents. This would have been fair enough as a correction to all the heroic myths which had sprung up is it were not for the fact that 50 years on, this sneering is now the establishment position.
The Way to the Stars should be required viewing for all would-be sneerers. Once the get beyond the fringes of pronunciation, they would see the real sacrifice that these people made.