As an avid chess player whose interest also extends to the history of the royal game and to 1940s films in particular, I feel qualified to adjudicate on the comical dispute in this film between "Colonel Forsythe" (C Aubrey Smith) & "Mr Hiram Porter Dunn" (Frank Morgan when they debated who was the better chess player, whether Joseph Henry Blackburne (from Manchester, England (b.10/12/1842) or Harry Nelson Pillsbury (from nr.Boston Mass. b.5/12/1872 (British day/month year order).It is unusual for a Hollywood film producer to take such an interest in the noble game indeed I cannot think of any other incident in contemporary popular films, so I was naturally intrigued by their argument.Pillsbury the American shot to fame by coming to Europe where no one in chess circles had heard of him and proceeded to win the great Hastings 1895 tournament with 16 1/2 points ahead of the then world champion Emmanuel Lasker who came 3rd scoring 15 1/2 points.Blackburne could only come a lowly 10th position scoring 10 1/2 points.When Frank Morgan as Hiram Porter Dunn insists "Pillsbury invented that move", I am assuming he is alluding to a variation as white of the Queens Gambit Declined where white initiates a stonewall attack by planting a knight on the e5 square, pawns on the c3/d4/e3/f4 & g4 squares, develops other pieces into a set "stonewall" pattern and then builds up a massive king side attack.Of course he was 30 years younger than Blackburne at the time while he only lived to 34 in 1906 while Blackburne died aged 82 in 1924.By the way in their individual game at Hastings these two combatants drew with each other.
I found the film too syrupy for my liking but being produced in 1944 film producers were briefed by governments to assist the war effort and promote accord between allied forces, especially with the Normandy landings in the offing.In "A Matter of Life & Death" (1946) Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger were under similar instructions to promote harmony between the allies.Let us not forget that the man voted in a recent TV poll "The Greatest ever Briton" - W. S. Churchill (born 1874) was the product of an American mother, born Jennie Jerome & a British father, Randolph Churchill.My understanding of the 1942 Dieppe raid was that it was an exclusively Canadian operation, almost a dress rehearsal for the real invasion two years later; so I felt it was a bit too "pat" to have three nationalities of soldiers together in a shell crater but I understand why this scene was written into the film script.
I found the film too syrupy for my liking but being produced in 1944 film producers were briefed by governments to assist the war effort and promote accord between allied forces, especially with the Normandy landings in the offing.In "A Matter of Life & Death" (1946) Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger were under similar instructions to promote harmony between the allies.Let us not forget that the man voted in a recent TV poll "The Greatest ever Briton" - W. S. Churchill (born 1874) was the product of an American mother, born Jennie Jerome & a British father, Randolph Churchill.My understanding of the 1942 Dieppe raid was that it was an exclusively Canadian operation, almost a dress rehearsal for the real invasion two years later; so I felt it was a bit too "pat" to have three nationalities of soldiers together in a shell crater but I understand why this scene was written into the film script.