HOPE AND GLORY 161
Hope and Glory (1987)
Synopsis
Hope and Glory is a British comedy/drama/war film written, produced, and directed
by John Boorman and based on his own boyhood experiences during World War
II’s London Blitz (the film’s title is derived from the traditional British patriotic song
“Land of Hope and Glory”).
Background
Forty years after World War II British director John Boorman (Deliverance) wrote
Hope and Glory, a coming- of- age script based on his own memories of family life
in Surrey and later in Shepperton (both London suburbs), from the ages of six to
nine (1939 to 1942), a period punctuated by The Blitz (7 September 1940–
10 May 1941). Proposing an unconventional WWII film, Boorman had trou ble
attracting Hollywood financing. He raised part of the bud get by pre- selling
Eu ro pean rights to some 20 distributors before securing principal backing
from Embassy Home Entertainment and Columbia Pictures, companies owned
by Coca- Cola but sold to De Laurentiis Entertainment Group and Nelson Enter-
tainment during pre- production— a bumpy transition that nearly derailed the
proj ect. Initially visualized as a $10 million movie, Hope and Glory had its studio
bud get trimmed to $7.5 million. Consequently Boorman was forced to defer his
own fees as writer, producer, and director; cut salaries; and scale back the scope of
the film, for example, eliminating black and white sequences depicting Billy Rohan’s
fantasies about the war (Hoyle, 2012, pp. 151–161).
Production
Hope and Glory was filmed at vari ous locations in the Greater London area over 55
shooting days (4 August–21 October 1986). For the film’s main set, crews under
the direction of Boorman’s production designer Tony Pratt built a 200- yard- long
replica of Rosehill Ave nue, Carshalton (Surrey), on the disused runway at the for-
mer Wisley Airfield, also in Surrey (10 miles southwest of the center of London).
The faux street— constructed at a cost of £750,000— featured the facades of six
pairs of facing semi- detached houses built on scaffolding, supplemented by cut-
outs of more houses and of the London skyline in the distance. The house where
the Rohans lived was fully built of brick and wood because it had to be burned
down. The small backyard gardens typical of semi- detached row houses were also
constructed, as were ruins of bombed buildings. The entire set covered 50 acres,
making it the largest movie set built in the UK since the early 1960s. Queen’s Manor
Primary School, Lysia Street, Fulham (London), served as Billy’s school, and The
Vine Inn, Hillingdon Hill, in Uxbridge was used as the setting for Billy’s father’s
enlistment site. Other scenes by the river were shot near Shepperton Lock.
Plot Summary
A black and white newsreel announces the start of the war, but six- year- old Billy
Rohan (Sebastian Rice Edwards) prefers Hopalong Cassidy Westerns. In a voice- over