The Way to the Stars is a 1945 Anglo-American black-and-white second world war drama film made by Two Cities Films. The film was produced by Anatole de Grunwald, directed by Anthony Asquith, and stars Michael Redgrave, John Mills, Rosamund John, and Stanley Holloway. In the United States it was shortened by 22 minutes, and the shortened version was distributed by United Artists under the title Johnny in the Clouds.
The screenplay for The Way to the Stars was written by noted dramatist Terence Rattigan, based on a scenario co-written by Rattigan with USAAF Captain Richard Sherman. The film is a significant reworking of Rattigan's 1942 play Flare Path. Rattigan, then a Royal Air Force Flight Lieutenant, was posted in 1943 to the RAF Film Production Unit to work on The Way to the Stars and Journey Together.
The title The Way to the Stars is often assumed to have been taken from the Latin motto of the RAF, Per ardua ad astra. However, the literal translation of the RAF motto is "Through adversity to the stars". The title of the shortened American version, Johnny in the Clouds, is derived from the poem recited in the film as a tribute to a dead aviator.
Plot
The film opens on an abandoned airfield, the fictional RAF Station Halfpenny Field, and the opening scenes reference people and objects which will be shown later. This approach is similar to the opening and closing scenes of an abandoned airfield in the later 1949 film Twelve O'Clock High, which is set on the fictional RAF Archbury.
In a flashback, Pilot Officer Peter Penrose is posted in the summer of 1940 as a pilot to the fictional No. 720 Squadron, RAF, an operational bomber squadron flying Bristol Blenheims at a fictional new airfield, RAF Halfpenny Field. Penrose is a very new and inexperienced pilot who has only flown Blenheims for 15 hours. He is assigned to B Flight, under Flight Lieutenant David Archdale.
When No. 720 Squadron's commanding officer, Squadron Leader Carter (Trevor Howard, in his second but first credited film role), is shot down, Archdale takes over. While Penrose develops into a first-class pilot, he meets Iris Winterton, a young woman living with her domineering aunt at the Golden Lion Hotel in the nearby town. Archdale marries Miss Todd, the popular manager of the hotel, who is known to everyone as Toddy. The Archdales later have a son, Peter.
By May 1942, the squadron is now flying Douglas Boston bombers. When Penrose shows signs of strain from extensive combat, Archdale has him posted to controller school but is himself shot down and killed over France while Penrose is on his last mission. Penrose had been courting Iris, despite her aunt's disapproval, but Archdale's fate weighs heavily on his mind. Not wanting Iris to suffer if the same thing happened to him, he stops seeing her.
No. 720 Squadron is sent to the Middle East, but Penrose remains behind as a ground controller for a United States Army Air Forces B-17 Flying Fortress bombardment group, which takes over the airfield. He befriends USAAF Captain Johnny Hollis and Lieutenant Joe Friselli. On 17 August 1942 the American airmen participate in the first attack by the USAAF on Occupied France, later ruefully acknowledging that they underestimated the difficulties involved. Afterwards, Penrose is posted to flying duties with an RAF Avro Lancaster bomber squadron.
In 1944, now a squadron leader and Pathfinder pilot, Penrose makes an emergency landing at Halfpenny Field, where he once again meets Iris. Iris had decided to leave her aunt for good and join up. Toddy persuades a still-reluctant Penrose to propose to Iris, saying that she did not regret her own marriage in spite of her husband's death. Hollis, who has formed a platonic relationship with Toddy, is killed while trying to land his battle-damaged B-17 with a hung up bomb aboard, rather than safely bail out and risk crashing into the local village or another town.
The film ends with American and British airman leaving the Golden Lion Hotel, watched by Toddy, who recites the poem "For Johnny".
Poetry
Two poems supposedly written by David Archdale were used in the film. They were written by John Pudney earlier in 1941 or 1942. The first poem is Missing. Archdale is portrayed as reciting it to Toddy shortly before their marriage, after his close friend Squadron Leader Carter is killed in action. Archdale tells Toddy that "I try and say things I feel that way sometimes. Sort of hobby" and tells her that she is the only person who knows he writes poetry.