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''This Happy Breed'' is a 1944 British Technicolor drama film directed by David Lean. The screenplay by Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan and Ronald Neame is based on the 1939 play of the same title by Noël Coward. The title, a reference to the English people, is a phrase from John of Gaunt's monologue in Act II, Scene 1 of William Shakespeare's ''Richard II''. ==Plot== Opening in 1919, shortly after the end of the First World War, the film focuses on the middle class Gibbons family after they settle in a house in Clapham, South London. The household includes Frank, his wife Ethel, their three children – Reg, Vi and Queenie – his widowed sister Sylvia and Ethel's mother. Frank is delighted to discover that his next-door neighbour is Bob Mitchell, a friend from his days in the army. Frank finds employment in a travel agency run by another old army chum. As the children grow up and the country adapts to peacetime, the family attend a number of events, such as the British Empire Exhibition held at Wembley in 1924. Reg becomes friendly with Sam, a staunch socialist, who is attracted to Vi. Queenie is pursued by Bob's sailor son Billy, but she longs to escape the suburbs and lead a more glamorous life elsewhere. During the General Strike of 1926, Reg is injured in a brawl in Whitechapel Road. Vi blames Sam, who had brought her brother to the area, but eventually her anger dissipates and she marries him. In 1928, Charleston dance mania arrives in England; Queenie exhibits her fancy steps at the local dance hall and wins a dance contest. As all of London is swept up in the Jazz Age, news of new German chancellor Adolf Hitler begins to appear in the newspapers. Reg marries Phyllis. Billy proposes to Queenie, but she confesses she is in love with a married man and soon after runs off with him. Her mother says she cannot forgive her and never wants to see her again. As time passes, Aunt Sylvia discovers spiritualism, Reg and Phyllis are killed in a car crash, and the British Union of Fascists tries to stir up anti-Semitic sentiment in the city. Stanley Baldwin becomes Prime Minister, King George V dies, and Ethel's mother passes away. When Neville Chamberlain returns from Munich with the promise of "peace in our time", Frank is disgusted by people's enthusiastic response. Billy, home on leave from the Royal Navy and now a sub-lieutenant, announces to the family he ran into Queenie while on shore leave in France. Abandoned by her lover, she and an older woman opened a tearoom to make ends meet. She deeply regrets having left home. Billy reveals they were married two weeks previously in the Plymouth Register Office and he has brought her back to London; Ethel forgives her. With the Second World War on the horizon, Queenie has a baby son, whom she leaves in the care of her parents when she sails to join her husband in Singapore. Frank and Ethel, faced with an empty nest, decide to sell the house and move to a flat with their grandson. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「This Happy Breed (film)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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