Hanover Street

Hanover Street
film poster by John Alvin
Directed by	Peter Hyams
Produced by	Paul Lazarus III
Written by	Peter Hyams
Starring	Harrison Ford Christopher Plummer Lesley-Anne Down Patsy Kensit
Music by	John Barry
Cinematography	David Watkin
Editing by	James Mitchell
Release date(s)	26 September 1979
Running time	109 mins
Country	United States  United Kingdom
Language	English

Hanover Street is a 1979 Anglo-American war film written and directed by Peter Hyams, starring Harrison Ford and Lesley-Anne Down.

Plot

Set in London during the Second World War, Lieutenant David Halloran (Harrison Ford) an American bomber pilot serving with the Eighth Air Force in the UK and Margaret Sellinger (Lesley-Anne Down) a British nurse meet in Hanover Street in a chance encounter during an air raid

They meet again two weeks later in a secret assignation in Hanover Street. Although she is married, Sellinger and Halloran rapidly fall in love. She tries to resist, but is drawn to the charismatic American. By contrast her husband Paul Sellinger (Christopher Plummer) is, by his own description, suave and pleasant but fairly dull. A former teacher, he is now a trusted member of British intelligence.

Halloran is subsequently sent on an undercover mission in Nazi-occupied France to deliver a British agent. At the last moment, Sellinger takes the place of the agent Lieutenant Wells, and himself joins the mission. His reasons are initially unclear, but he slowly reveals that he wanted to prove himself.

The plane is hit, killing the rest of the crew. After being shot down in France, Halloran initially plans to try and head for the coast, but realising that Sellinger is not capable of surviving alone in enemy country (he cannot find the North, and badly injures his ankle after a matter of moments) he agrees to accompany him.

Sellinger slowly reveals his mission. He is to proceed to the German headquarters in Lyon and, posing as an SS officer, photograph an important document, listing the German double-agents in British intelligence. Halloran is immediately horrified at the appalling risk, but realising there is little else to be done, agrees to co-operate with Sellinger.

Making contact with the local French resistance, they manage to get hold of a captured German vehicle and a spare uniform for Halloran. They proceed to Lyon, and deposit a document in the safe, allowing them to case the safe in which it is kept.

Returning the same evening, Sellinger initially starts to photograph the documents, but Halloran grabs the documents from the safe and gives them to Sellinger. As they are escaping, a part of real SS troops raise the alarm. They manage to escape after a lengthy car chase, and make it back to the same farm where they had received assistance. However they are betrayed by a collaborator and are forced to flee again, pursued by hundreds of Nazi troops.

It has slowly dawned on Halloran that Sellinger is his lover's husband. He makes no mention of it to Sellinger, who is clearly devoted his Margaret, as both men must work together in order to survive. They manage to reach a bridge, on the opposite bank of which lies safety in the form of the resistance. As the bridge comes under heavy fire it begins to collapse, leading Sellinger, who has been shot and badly wounded, hanging over a deep plunge.

Instead of leaving him to die, as Sellinger tells him to, Halloran reaches down and grabs hold of the Englishman. Sellinger looking up, asks him to visit his wife and tell her he loves her and his daughter. Refusing to let him die, Halloran drags him up, and carries him to safety. Jokingly, Sellinger looks up and says he has got a "wet coat, again" a reference to his pleasing but unheroic personality, contrasted with Halloran's dashing persona. The American shakes his head, saying "this time you got the girl". Sellinger then passes out, leaving Halloran fearing he will die of blood loss.

In London, Sellinger's wife waits anxiously for news. She has unsuccessfully tried to find out what has happened to her husband, both from the British and American authorities, but has worked out that Halloran and Sellinger are together. The phone rings, and she burts into tears. They are back home, and her husband is alive.

Going to visit him in the hospital in Hanover Street, she meets Lt. Halloran for the last time. The embrace and kiss, and he tells her that he loves her "enough to let her go", she goes in to see her husband, while he goes out into Hanover Street, the same scene where the story had begun.

Production

The aerial sequences were mostly filmed at the by then-disused Bovingdon airfield using five North American B-25s Mitchell bombers flown over to England from USA specially for the filming.

In the film, Down emerges hurriedly from a Piccadilly line tube station called "Hanover Street". In reality there was no such station and, since Hanover Street links upper Regent Street and Brook Street, this would not, in any case, match the alignment of the Piccadilly line – unless there were a fictitious spur similar to that which ran from Holborn to Aldwych from 1907 to 1994.

Reception

The film was a critical and commercial failure on its release, but has developed a following amongst aviation enthusiats due to the flying sequences.

Awards

Patsy Kensit was nominated for, but did not win, the Best Juvenile Actress in a Motion Picture award for 1980 from Young Artists Awards.^[1]

Cast

As appearing in screen credits (main roles identified)^[2]:

Aircraft

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

• Hanover Street, Mayfair London
• Hanover Street (film) at the Internet Movie Database
• Hanover Street (film) at Rotten Tomatoes
• SoundtrackCollector page
• A modern-day tour of the film's title setting