Movie Review: 'Hanover Street' should have been called 'Hangover Street'

"Hanover Street" (1979)

Written and directed by Peter Hyams

Starring: Harrison Ford, Lesley-Anne Down, Christopher Plummer, Richard Masur, Patsy Kensit, John Ratzenberger

David Halloran: You people actually drink this stuff?

Margaret Sellinger: No we just like to put it in our cups and stare at it.

David Halloran: Tastes too much like, boiled water.

Margaret Sellinger: It is boiled water.

David Halloran: I knew there was a reason.

During World War II, London was the nerve center of the Allied war effort against Nazi Germany. From 1939 to 1945, tens of thousands of service personnel from many nations, including the United States, flooded into Great Britain's capital to plan and execute a myriad of military operations to liberate Europe from Hitler's tyranny.

Inevitably, the war fostered a "live and love for today, for tomorrow we may die" attitude among the men and women in Britain. This led to a surge of sudden and passionate romantic affairs, many of which were adulterous.

War and love make strange bedfellows. They also form the basis for many movies set during World War II, including "Casablanca," "From Here to Eternity," "The English Patient," "D-Day: The Sixth of June," and "Pearl Harbor."

In Peter Hyams' 1979 film “Hanover Street,” Harrison Ford plays Lt. David Halloran, a B-25 bomber pilot based in England before the D-Day invasion of Normandy.  Skilled in the cockpit, David is also reckless at times. He often takes risks he thinks are necessary to fulfill his mission.

While on leave in London, David meets British nurse Margaret Sellinger (Lesley-Anne Down) on Hanover Street during a German air raid.

David and Margaret are instantly attracted to each other. They meet again two weeks later on "Hanover Street", this time for a romantic rendezvous.

As in "D-Day: The Sixth of June," the American officer and the British woman form two-thirds of a love triangle, with Christopher Plummer, who plays Margaret’s decent-but-unexciting husband Paul, completing the film’s trio.

A detached and dull professor, Paul isn’t an active-duty military officer.  He serves King and country as an intelligence analyst for MI6, the British counterintelligence service.  Paul is a nice guy, but he suspects that deep down he might not be “good enough” for his very attractive wife.

Though the movie’s plot keeps David and Paul from meeting for quite a while, "Hanover Street" finds a way to have their paths cross. As often happens in this genre, David is assigned to fly a dangerous mission over occupied France to drop Paul behind German lines.

My Take

"Hanover Street" is a fair-to-middling mix of Harrison Ford-worthy war action and soapy romance that works rather well in the adventure half but falls flat in the love story one.

At this point of his career, Ford was not the superstar of "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark"  After he co-starred in "Star Wars," Ford appeared in supporting roles in "Apocalypse Now" and "Force 10 From Navarone," These movies got mixed reviews but did not catapult him into leading man status.

Sadly, "Hanover Street" did not help increase Ford's potential as a major player beyond the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" franchises.

As the cocky David Halloran, Ford does well when he’s at the controls of his B-25 bomber.  The rapport he has with his crew is believable, particularly when he shares the screen with his wryly humorous bombardier, Lt. Jerry Cimino (Richard Masur) and his copilot, Lt. Martin Hyer (Michael Sachs).

2nd Lt. Jerry Cimino: Hey, they're shooting at us! How come every time we fly over they shoot guns at us?

David Halloran: Because we drop bombs on them.

2nd Lt. Jerry Cimino: They have no sense of humor. Can't you guys take a joke?

This close bond between David and his crew gives "Hanover Street" some of the best material and gives Ford a chance to show his acting skills.

The interaction between David and Paul is also interesting if somewhat less plausible.  Plummer plays the somewhat out-of-his-league spy in a sympathetic fashion that earns our admiration even though Hyams is striving to make us root for David and Margaret.

Lesley-Anne Down, unfortunately, is the weak link in the love triangle aspect of "Hanover Street".  Her Margaret gets kudos for not simply filing for a divorce and abandoning Paul  and their daughter Sarah (Patsy Kensit) in the middle of the war.

However,  her “I’m seeing a hot American flyboy because I’m bored with my hubby” motivation simply isn’t as memorable as Ilsa Lund’s “I thought my husband was dead” reason for hooking up with Rick Blaine in Casablanca.

Down’s performance in "Hanover Street" is hit-and-miss, as well.  She’s physically attractive and looks good in and out of her uniform, but she gives her character a fake-sounding “Sloan Ranger” high class accent that doesn’t ring true.

The score composed by John Barry (but conducted by Harry Rabinowitz) is sweeping yet schmaltzy. Its melancholic “Main Theme” shares some similarity to some of Barry’s other compositions and resembles the style of 1940s love themes.  However, the music – which underwent some changes because Hyams re-did some of the movie’s scenes in mid-production – is generic at best and not very memorable.

The film’s aerial sequences are well made and should grab the attention of most World War II warbird buffs. Several real B-25s which survived the war were flown from the U.S. to Britain for the movie. The resulting imagery is the best part of the film.

And even though Hyams did not make "Hanover Street" as a documentary about Army Air Force pilots or undercover intelligence officers in wartime, he should have paid attention to one glaring era-related goof: Harrison Ford’s hair is longer than military regulations allow.

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Though the average viewer might dismiss this gripe as typical review-writer BS, not only does the below-the-nape-of-the-neck hair length make Ford’s character look unmilitary and anachronistic, but it would have made some of his character’s deeds virtually impossible in the film’s set-in-occupied France scenes.

DVD Specifications

• Format: Multiple Formats, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English, German
• Subtitles: Chinese, English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish
• Dubbed: French, Spanish
• Subtitles for the Hearing Impaired: English
• Region: Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: July 31, 2001

Run Time: 109 minutes