Trivia / In Which We Serve

• Backed by the Pentagon:
  • The film received cooperation from the Royal Navy, the army and the RAF.
  • In the middle of a war, Lord Louis Mountbatten was able to procure real sailors to play extras.
  • The German aircraft which bombs and strafes the Torrin was a real Junkers Ju 88 bomber belonging to the Luftwaffe that had been captured by the British and was being flown by the Royal Air Force for training and demonstration purposes.
• Breakthrough Hit: For David Lean.
• Cast the Expert: The soldiers who marched away after being rescued from Dunkirk were not actors, but men from the Fifth Battalion, The Coldstream Guards, one of the UK's elite infantry regiments.
• Copiously Credited Creator: Noël Coward is credited as Star, Producer, Writer, Composer and Director, the last credit being shared with David Lean. However, the 'director' part is debatable, the original intention was for Coward to direct the actors and Lean to direct the action sequences, but as the film went on Coward became bored with the film-making and left most of the work to Lean.
• Fatal Method Acting: There was a tragedy during the shooting of this movie, during a relatively straightforward special effects scene of an explosion in a gun turret. After the first take, David Lean (Noël Coward wasn't present) was dissatisfied. Chief Electrician Jock Dymore, keen to get the scene wrapped before lunch, climbed onto the set with a bottle full of the flashpowder used for the explosive effect. The containers they were using were still white-hot from the first take, and the resulting blast killed Dymore and seriously injured two others.
• Never Work with Children or Animals: The role of Lavinia Kinross was originally intended for five-year-old Anna Massey, as her brother Daniel Massey had been cast as her movie brother Bobby Kinross. According to her memoirs, however, she screamed so much at the audition, that the role had to be re-cast.
• One-Take Wonder: Celia Johnson's lengthy scene in which she makes a moving toast to her rival, her husband's ship, was done in one take.
• Playing Against Type: For Noël Coward, from both a directing and acting standard. Many thought he was an odd choice to play a hardened naval commander and he was known for making light comedies.
• Real-Life Relative: Shorty Blake's baby was played by John Mills' one year-old daughter Juliet Mills.
• What Could Have Been:
  • William Hartnell was originally cast as Albert Fosdike, but he was fired when he turned up late on his first day of shooting. Noël Coward berated Hartnell in front of cast and crew for his unprofessionalism and then fired him.
  • Coward vetoed the casting of James Mason in a key role because of his stance on the war.
  • Coward's original screenplay ran for four hours.
• Write Who You Know: Noël Coward was a friend of Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was Captain of the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Kelly from the outbreak of the Second World War until Kelly was sunk by enemy action in May, 1941. Coward wrote the screenplay for this movie based on Mountbatten's experiences on HMS Kelly. Coward's character in the film, Captain E. V. Kinross R.N. / Captain 'D', was also based on Mountbatten's experiences.

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