Waterloo Road

John Mills is the soldier who goes AWOL upon hearing of his wife’s affair, returning home to confront Stewart Granger’s home-wrecking spiv.

Long before BBC’s Rochdale school series of the same name, John Mills angrily strutted the streets of South London in this 1940s favourite. He plays Private Jim Colter, a soldier who goes AWOL when he hears his wife might be having a fling, returning to Waterloo to confront Stewart Granger’s home-wrecking spiv.

This dynamic Gainsborough production was a popular success towards the end of WWII, cannily exploiting prevalent fears around war-time infidelity. It marked the final entry in an unofficial trilogy of war-themed dramas from creative partners Sidney Gilliat, Frank Launder and Edward Black, following Millions Like Us (1943) and Two Thousand Women (1944).