User reviews

Before she went into politics or public service, Glenda Jackson was one of Britain's finest film actresses. This film displays her talent despite having a supporting role in a stellar cast that includes Julie Christie as Kitty, the wife of a British Royal Captain who has lost his memory of the last 20 years, and Jenny played by American Ann-Margret in an almost unrecognizable role as the doting sister. Alan Bates plays the captain who suffers from memory loss triggered by the shell shock during World War I. Sir Ian Holm has a smaller role as the doctor treating him. You see familiar faces like Sheila Keith, Patsy Byrne, and Frank Finlay. You can't help but watch Glenda play a dowdy housewife and the first true love of the Captain but they came from different classes. It's not the greatest movie but it's good to see Glenda's amazing talent. She is still a fantastic actress, comedy or drama. She makes Margaret Grey into a likable character and you see why a regal captain fell in love with her.

Julie Christie plays a negative wealthy character Kitty (created by novelist Rebecca West) with aplomb. Christie's Kitty is stunningly beautiful and yet is so snooty and possessive of her husband (Alan Bates). Glenda Jackson plays the intelligent, dowdy middleclass, caring, married woman who is the contrasting lover of Kittie's husband's past. Ms West cleverly designed the two characters to have lost a child each, both at the age of five. Both ladies are traumatized equally. However, I found Ann-Margaret, playing Kitty's sister-in-law Jenny, to be better than the other two ladies. Apart from the all round notable performances of all the characters, the casting of the main characters and the camerawork of Stephen Goldbatt (was director Alan Bridges also a contributor to the intelligent camera placing?) were notable. Not a great work, this film, but a delight to watch all the actors and actresses emote in their varied roles.

I just finished the novel today and watched this on YouTube and am only writing this to say it is amazingly faithful to West's novella. You rarely see a movie that stays so true to a book and then succeeds as a film as this one does.

This is one of the most beautiful, and heartbreaking, films that I have ever seen. The story of a shell-shocked soldier who, in order to escape the horrors of the war in which he has been involved (WW I) retreats to some inner world of the past. He loses all sense of reality, and becomes entrenched in a time before his marriage, the loss of his child, and the pressures of adulthood. Played by the magnificent and tragically departed Alan Bates, the title character Captain Chris Baldry, takes refuge in a love that existed twenty years before, when he was a young man with his life in front of him. The object of his affection, Glenda Jackson, is now a middle aged woman, but he sees her with the eyes of love, and she is for him the youthful beauty with whom he fell in love decades ago. His wife, a brittle and uncaring Julie Christie, wants him to regain his sense of the present, because she misses her social status. His first love does not initially believe that he should be roused back to consciousness, because she wants him to remain in a happy, albeit unrealistic state. His cousin (played by an unusually good Ann-Margret), a woman who has loved him in secret since the days of their shared childhood, is in a middle place between the two, wanting him back, and yet appreciating the fact that his unawareness and his psychological trip backward in time is bringing him a sort of peace.

Ultimately, the women join forces and realize, with the help of a psychiatrist, that the man they love must be roused from his reverie. The final scene, in which he is brought face to face with reality, is wrenching and difficult, and Sir Alan is able to show with the straightening of his shoulders and the stiffness of his gait that he has returned, sadly, to the present. It is an unspeakably sad performance, of great beauty.

I was reminded, when watching this film, of another film which focused almost entirely on character as opposed to action: "Charly" a film based on the book "Flowers for Algernon" In that movie, which garnered an Academy Award as Best Actor for Cliff Robertson, depicted how an individual who has been moved into a different reality (a retarded man becomes, for a short while, intellectually gifted)can capture a few moments of happiness, which must be sacrificed when he returns to his prior state.

Similarly, the film 'Awakenings' with Robert De Niro tells the story of a man who languished in a coma for many years, and was allowed, through the use of an experimental drug, a few weeks of happiness, a few brief moments to experience life, before the veil of unconsciousness was once again drawn over him when the drugs stopped working.

These stories of people who find happiness in small, short snippets of time, are incredibly moving, and underscore the brevity of life, and the importance of living each moment to its fullest extent.

The Return of the Soldier is truly a tour de force, very sad, very beautiful, and incredibly well-acted. I would strongly recommend it to admirers of Alan Bates, and all those who want to be deeply engaged by a film.

Chris Baldry (Alan Bates) returns from WWI with shell shock and his memory in tatters. His wife, Julie Christie unable to accept the situation is desperate to return to the rigid high society world she loves so much. Baldry though cannot remember his wife, but instead recalls his love from 20 years before with Glenda Jackson, who visits him and enables him to find happiness again.

Touching and beautifully acted by a fabulous cast, it's impossible to pinpoint any particular performance as they're all extremely impressive. It's a gentle tale with a perfect ending where you realise the dilemma of curing Bates so he can return to normality or leaving him young at heart and happy, but essentially hiding from his true life.

This is superb - the acting wonderful, sets, clothes, music - but most of all the story itself.

I am amazed there aren't more reviews of this movie - certainly one of the best of the 1980s.

It's also a wonderful movie to see in tandem with the great "Random Harvest" which has much the same opening crisis

-- a middle aged, unknown English W.W.I officer is in a hospital toward the close of the war, suffering from shell shock and complete amnesia without any idea of his name, origin, or anywhere he belongs - he proves to be a very wealthy established man - when he "recovers", he will not remember the years before the war --

But there the movies' resemblances end.

My warmest thanks to all who participated in the movie - particularly the actors Ian Holm, Alan Bates, Ann Margret (what a great and surprising casting choice), Glenda Jackson, Julie Christie.

This one stays with you forever.

In this unique story of shellshock, Alan Bates returns home from the Great War with a case of amnesia. He has no recollection of his wife, Julie Christie, his lavish home, or their life they built together before the war. Instead, he wants nothing more than to see his old sweetheart, Glenda Jackson, who is now married and living in the city. Julie is patient at first, but her feelings are hurt that he not only is completely uninterested in her but seems not to even like her company. She hires a psychiatrist, Ian Holm, who recommends that he establish contact with Glenda. Once he gets in touch with reality, he can start to accept it. The story is extremely interesting, but the very end is more than a little depressing. I won't spoil anything, but I was not in high spirits when the credits rolled.

I always like the collaboration of Alan and Julie. This is their third film together, and even though he doesn't even remember her, they still have a great onscreen chemistry. It's Ann-Margret, though, who steals the show in a completely against-type role. She plays the dowdy spinster sister - can you imagine? With an austere brown wig, no makeup, and plain clothes, she completely sheds her sex symbol persona. I'm particularly gifted at recognizing faces (even going so far as to identify someone by their teeth or nostrils alone), but someone without that talent might not even recognize her - especially because she speaks in an English accent. I'm proud of her for taking such a risk, and for performing so well.

Send him back! An ungodly bore from the UK and director Alan Bridges stars Alan Bates as an Army captain returning home from duty in World War I with his memory impaired (probably not an overused story function in 1918 when Rebecca West published her novel, but now a self-defeating cliché). Seems Bates remembers old flame Glenda Jackson but not current wife Julie Christie, which should be enough to set off some emotional sparks. Instead, this chilly adaptation by screenwriter Hugh Whitemore is simply a star-studded non-starter. There are less than a handful of strong scenes (it picks up whenever Jackson is around), Bridges' pacing is unrelievedly sluggish, and the dulled-out color from cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt is enervating. "Soldier" sat on the shelf for three years ("due to legal complications") and is best left forgotten. One BAFTA nomination: for Frank Finlay as Best Supporting Actor. *1/2 from ****

With the advent of the IMDb, this overlooked movie can now find an interested audience. Why? Because users here who do a search on two-time Academy Award winner Glenda Jackson can find 'The Return of The Soldier' among her credits. So can those checking out Oscar winner Julie Christie. Fans of Ann-Margret can give the title a click, as will those looking into the career of the great Alan Bates. Not to mention the added bonus of a movie with supporting heavyweights Ian Holm and Frank Finlay. Any movie with so many notables in it is rewarded by the IMDb, given all the cross-referencing that goes on here. So, why isn't this movie out on DVD? Don't the Producers realize the Internet Movie Database is a marketing gift for such a film? And 'The Return of The Soldier' is definitely a gem waiting to be discovered. Get with it, people.

The cliché of the shell-shocked soldier home from the war is here given dull treatment. Pity a splendid cast, acting to the limits of their high talents, can't redeem 'The Return of the Soldier' from its stiff-collared inability to move the viewer to emotional involvement. Best moments, as another reviewer noted, come when Glenda Jackson is on screen; but even Jackson's crackling good cinematic power can't pull this film's chestnuts from its cold, never warmed hearth. Ann-Margret, she of sex-kitten repute and too often accused of lacking acting ability, finds her actual and rather profound abilities wasted here - despite her speaking with a nigh-flawless Middlesex accent. The hackneyed score, redolent of many lackluster TV miniseries' slathered-on saccharine emotionalism, is at irritating odds with the emotional remoteness of the script, blocking, and overbaked formalism of the direction; except for its score and corseted script and direction, 'The Return of the Soldier' has all the right bits but it fails to make them work together.

Everything about this film is brilliant, and it is one of the finest films to come out of England in the 1980s. Alan Bates, Glenda Jackson, and Julie Christie, all give some of the most glowing and inspired performances of their entire careers. The film is based upon a haunting novel by Rebecca West (undoubtedly based on real situations she had encountered when she was young), with an excellent script by Hugh Whitemore. The film's evocative atmosphere is immensely powerful, aided greatly by the excellent musical score by Richard Rodney Bennett, which brings out the flavour of the film as salt, garlic and rosemary bring out the flavour of roast lamb. The editing is particularly good, by Laurence Méry-Clark. Ian Holm, Frank Finlay, and Jeremy Kemp are all very good in their supporting roles, which are relatively small. A surprise is Ann-Margret as Cousin Jenny, a major role. For a good-time American girl involved with the Rat Pack in Las Vegas, to play a repressed English spinster of 1918 to perfection was no mean achievement, and shows she was a real actress. Such versatility, and it is a pity she did not do more of that. The direction by Alan Bridges is exquisitely sensitive and nearly perfect. His other major achievements were directing THE HIRELING (1973, see my review), and THE SHOOTING PARTY (1985). He ceased working as long ago as 1990. He was a truly inspired director, most of whose output was of quality television which is not available to see today. This tragic tale concerns an English soldier, Captain Baldry (Alan Bates), who has returned from the First War with shell shock. He cannot remember the last twenty years of his life. Such cases did occur, and all this is not just made up. Julie Christie (who in real life is a sweetie) plays the horribly snobbish, vain, unfeeling wife of Bates who takes personal offence that he cannot remember her and does not find her attractive. She has little concern for his welfare or mental heath but keeps trying to force herself and his former life back on him, inviting neighbours to dinner the night after he returns home, with the opposite results to what she intended, of course. Her insensitivity to others is exceeded only by her self love. Bates under-plays his role, which makes it all the more effective. He cannot believe the vacuity of his former existence, and after asking Christie to tell him what their life together had been like and what they used to do all day, he says pathetically: 'Is that all?' They live in a grand house in the country and are exceedingly rich, with their house full of servants. All he can think of is his first great love, when he was twenty, a girl named Margaret (Glenda Jackson). She is found and meets him again after twenty years. She is married, as he is, and we eventually learn that each has a lost a child of the same age in the same year. In a wonderful and poignant scene with Cousin Jenny, Jackson says mournfully of the two lost children: 'It's as if each had only half a life.' Jackson is still in love with Bates and had never ceased to be. They lost touch because of circumstances when young, and now their love has come back. Bates keeps telling her he loves her, and acts like a boy of twenty again when he is with her. Christie seethes with rage but can do nothing, as all her attempts to insult Jackson are water off a duck's back, and merely drive her herself further into irrelevance. Cousin Jenny is wholly in sympathy with Bates but is exposed as hopelessly ineffectual. She lives a wan existence in the huge household, as a family retainer with no future of her own. The subtlety with which all this is enacted and portrayed is what could be called 'the best of English tact'. Every touch is delicate, countless nuances are allowed to drift in the enchanted air of the isolated domain of the great house. Everyone dresses for dinner, and having to put on white tie every evening to come down to dine with one's wife and cousin is shown for the empty ritual it is, accepted, however, as part of a tradition which cannot be openly questioned. After all, in that long-vanished society, formality was the badge of belonging, and if you did not wear your white tie to private dinners with your own wife at home you were no longer 'one of us'. With his recent memory erased, Bates comes perilously close to experiencing exclusion from polite society because he cannot remember anyone and, through his innocence acquired courtesy of an enemy shell against his head, dares to question what he never dared to examine before. As his psychiatrist Ian Holm says, bringing someone like that back to 'normality' might merely mean bringing him back to unhappiness. Without having read the original novel, I can sense beneath the surface of this story a savage attack on the manners and mores of the privileged elite of the time. Presumably Rebecca West was not the girlfriend of socialist H. G. Wells for nothing, and they would have shared an agenda of attacking the root of privilege. Here this is done with immense but devastating subtlety through what in the end becomes a fable thrown like one of the German bombs against the fortress of the elite, as epitomised by the odious character of the voraciously selfish and spoilt Julie Christie. By contrast, Jackson leads a relatively impoverished life in Wealdstone (a location viciously mocked by Christie), married to a boring man, wrapped up in her baking and housework. Appallingly dressed, Christie calls her 'the dowd'. But Bates loves her madly, and ignores Christie. This film will remain a genuine and enduring classic.

This expensive, mainstream UK/US co-production,backed and distributed by 20th Century Fox, was at its Premiere at the Cannes Film Festival,shamelessly overlooked! They called it a well made,TV mini-series look-a-like, overly coated with thick layers of saccharine wanna be romantic drama. Since,after such poor reviews,despite the huge international Cast,and its enchanted settings, this wonderful,delicate,yet very poignant adaptation of one of Rebecca West's more controversial novels,ever, an extremely beautifully produced, extraordinarily acted moving,psychological period story,was cursed by bad Distributions worldwide, and I finally got to see it when i was about 15, in NYC in 1984, where, again, despite a fine launch,the movie was yet very quickly dismissed by main critics. I always loved Julie Christie and Glenda Jackson,and I remember almost forcing my mother to the Theater in one late spring,chilly rainy afternoon! I was expecting a true misfire and was just interested to see the Stars, whom, as we all know too well, have chosen way too many years ago, not to work very often (however Christie had huge and rightly raved come back's in the 1990's on stage or in great films like Universal's "Dragonheart",and as the lead Queen Gertrude in the stellar, big studio rendition of Kenneth Branagh's superb "Hamlet",followed by a Best Actress Oscar nominations and Best Actress Indy Spirit Awards Winner for her mesmerizing turn in Robert Altman's production of Alan Rudolph's "Afterglow" in 1998, and then has worked in very interesting films like Hal Hartley's also underrated "No such thing" in 2001,played Brad Pitt's mother in "Troy"(2004),was excellent in the wonderfully touching,Awards winning "Finding Neverland"(2005) and had a personal triumph, as Fiona,the still beautiful,Alzhaimer's disease affected lady who forgets her husband in Sarah Polley's outstanding Awards winner "Away from Her" in 2007,while she'll be just paired opposite Robert Redford's in the much awaited big budget political thriller "The Company you keep" due out next Awards Season! And forgive me for all this extra info on Christie, but It just excites me,that we are at least be able to see her, and forever haunting and gorgeous in very selected films, at least, while,Jackson has unfortunately left the scenes,apparently for good,in the late 1980's!). Well, once the tail credits of "The Return of the Soldier" were rolling, I noticed tears on my mother's eyes, and I was like electrified. While i can understand that today,still remaining a great solid film, has lost all that mystery and unique impeccable period reconstruction, and cinematography's merits, due to the almost overwhelming abundance of period romantic drama's that followed in the 1990's, and not just from Merchant-Ivory's, but also from many others, and not always so exceptional, as they were then reviewed, you have to understand that back then,i guess in early 1984, a so classic structured film,shot with such an innovative use, of flashbacks,haunting,dark and saturated cinematography,embracing some of the loveliest possible tones of a canvas,its unique editing and also formidable scoring, were not so common! I actually truly believe that the Cult that this film has developed (mostly in Europe) has certainly inspired all those numerous British/US co-productions that became instead so wildly popular in the 1990's and,again, not all of them, as good! Mother and I were stunned, by the film, its simple yet extremely moving twist at the end, a few very dramatic revelations, just staged with almost strict attention to measure, and,of course,besides the extremely sensitive,refined work from extremely focused director Alan Bridges (here at his very,very best,both with the sophisticated,yet deeply haunting narration,to the strong-back then- lovely and personal visual choices), we were delighted by the work of all the cast: a deeply penetrating performance from Jackson,a role that only Christie's natural Iconic talent could have made even sympathetic at the end, and certainly so gorgeous to look at, an extremely controlled,measured Alan Bates,here really offering almost a new face to his whole career, and the surprise of watching adorable, Ann-Margret, without make up and playing flawlessly, against type, the role of shy, sweet,if repressed and lonely, relative,kept in the wealth of her house by Kitty(Christie),almost more like a servant,or a useful house guest, than a real close and devoted relative. I can only say that,immediately back then, we sent many people,who were not truly convinced about going to a Theater to watch this excellent movie,always calling us back to thank us for the pitch or even so emotionally touched to want to come over over tea to discuss it! And throughout the years, I always heard incredible things about it,from almost anyone's with a certain sensibility for a superior,more eloquent and artistic type of filmmaking! And i can only still highly recommend it to most people: but please,just make sure to get a greater DVD widescreen copy, and not,another TV formatted, and brutally cut for commercials copy: this is a movie, rich of its own and unique fascinating atmosphere, and like a painting, should be appreciated at its best and most respectful vision, and not in some pan and scan TV version! Enjoy.

I was drawn to this film because of the cast and the fact that it was a Rebecca West story. After viewing the film I found myself so overwhelmed by it that I had to return to the theater the next day to see it again. In the second viewing I was able to truly "watch" the film. Alan Bridges attention to detail was astounding, as when Jenny dropped a comb onto the white fur rug in the window area of Kitty's bedroom as she saw Margaret approaching their house. When Margaret sat in the foyer waiting and gently touched a small figurine of a little boy with her loving finger. All one needed to know about the character of Margaret Allington was revealed. One tends to overlook the work of Ann-Margaret among this seasoned,professional cast. Her connection with Chris Baldry was completely believable,poignant and ultimately heart breaking. Excellent work. In a stroke of genius Bridges set the deciding scene in which Margaret tells Chris of his dead son (and is ultimately restored to a present day state of mind) far away from our viewing eyes. We cannot see the expression on Chris' face as he hears the news. We can only see his physical reaction to the tragic news and then finally Margaret standing a minute alone as he "returns" to the house before she turns and walks away. A brilliant handling of arguably the most important scene in the film. Alan Bridges was among the greatest of directors.

When I saw the cast for this film I had great expectations. However these were not fulfilled. Everything seemed such a cliche and better done in other films. Ot was directed at a snails pace The producers were Brent Walker better known for Joan Collins sex films.

The fact that this film sat on the shelf for 3 years,for whatever reason,says a lot about distributors faith in it.

It's a perfect film, and Ann-Margret with little or no makeup, mousy brown hair and a -- to my ears -- perfect British accent might have been totally unrecognizable if I hadn't already known she was in the cast. I can't say I was totally surprised at how good she was, since I have liked all her performances since Carnal Knowledge (I could just weep over all the wasted years and crummy movies preceding it), but the way she held her own as an Englishwoman with the royalty of the British screen was pretty impressive.

Bates is utterly heartbreaking and Jackson is quite wonderful. She is at, almost, her least physically attractive, which adds to the poignancy. Christie on the contrary, as a selfish and shallow beauty, really IS a beauty in the film, still, which adds to the interest. She is being overlooked in favor of Jackson, to whom the years have not been kind.

This is actually a film of understatements. The feelings and emotions are unbearably great and are never given any vent, but like a sleeping volcano they keep boiling underneath demanding a release sooner or later. The question is whether they are ever released. When Glenda Jackson finally asks Alan Bates' wife and doctor and sister to just let him be in his second childhood happiness, she is asking for the impossible and is well aware of it, and yet, we see nothing of the results of it. The meetings between her and Alan Bates are the most crucial and important scenes in the film, and yet we are kept out of their intimacy, and they both deny any existence of it. "How was your meeting?" after not having seen each other for twenty years, his wife Julie Christie asks, and he just answers, "We just talked," as of something trivial. But this constant chain of understatements are actually the strength and force of the film, communicating so much more than just the real action, and when Alan Bates finally is released from his happy ignorance, we never even get a glimpse of any consequence of it. We just have to guess and figure out how their lives would continue, probably returning completely to ordinary routines. Ann-Margret is surprisingly good as the sister, and the finest scene is perhaps when she and Glenda Jackson finally find and understand each other in mutual trust - in silence. It's a great film of an inextricable problem of mentality after too many shocks, both of the war and of personal tragedies, and doctor Anderson (Ian Holm) actually sums its all up when he says, "ignoring and forgetting pain does not cure it", a wound has to bleed in order to heal.

Alan Bates is shellshocked Chris Baldry who has no memory of his wife Julie Christie but does remember his love for Glenda Jackson. In order to cure him Glenda is invited to the house. She and Baldry reignite their flame. Ann-Margarite is terrific as Jenny, Chris Baldry's cousin. Frank Finlay is Jackson's husband who says to do whatever she wants to do. If I say more, It would spoil the plot. Needless to say Crristie, Jackson, and Ann-Margaret are worth going anywhere to view. Add Alan Bates to that threesome, and there is magic.

first, for the story who seems be a poem about vulnerabilities. than, for admirable performances. and for the great science of detail and for the lights who become second skin for each actor. a film about management of past. soft, nostalgic, seductive, bitter. about the war between two women for a man. a film in which each character is more than a presence but word from the experiences of the viewer. a special film. for the atmosphere and for the great art. for landscapes like translations of the states of the characters and for remarkable Glenda Jackson. for the science of exploration the nuances who define characters and impose each of them as the hero. a film who propose the dreamed Eangland from a lost age.